


Detroit: Interloper

by Cascade_Chinook_Centennial



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Action, Action & Romance, Alternate Universe, Angst and Humor, Anxiety, Avoidant Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Brain Damage, Demisexuality, Depression, Drama, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, F/M, Family Bonding, Family Dynamics, Family Issues, Female OCs that couldn't moonlight as supermodels, Female Protagonist, Flawed OCs, Gallows Humor, Gen, Humor, Imperfect OCs, Male-Female Friendship, Medical Conditions, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Murder Mystery, No Seriously EVERY SPOILER POSSIBLE Eventually, Other, POV Female Character, POV First Person, POV Original Character, Pansexual Character, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Relationships, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Science Fiction, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Spoilers, Thriller, Underpowered OCs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:15:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29455869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cascade_Chinook_Centennial/pseuds/Cascade_Chinook_Centennial
Summary: In late 2037, a traumatic brain injury received in a car accident causes a human to begin doubting what is real, and what is a false memory. As the evidence mounts in favor of her delusions having some basis in reality, the clock is ticking its way straight down to a massacre - a war between humans and androids.Haunted by ghosts from a world that shouldn’t exist, frightened to see that the most important figure in that world has gone AWOL, and armed only with deteriorating traces of foreknowledge, what can a lone organic do to save a synthetic species that doesn’t know it’s doomed?
Relationships: But I Do Love Daniel and Connor and Simon, Daniel (Detroit: Become Human)/Original Character(s), Daniel (Detroit: Become Human)/Reader, Hank Anderson & Original Female Character(s), Human & Android, Human/Android(s), Human/Human, Original Female Character & Everyone, Original Female Character/Whatever the Story Dictates I Have No Set Ships
Comments: 12
Kudos: 12





	1. Cognitive Dissonance

**Author's Note:**

> Mission Briefing: In this fan novel, there will be minimal canon divergence--one single event in the life of one minor character, with other changes being dependent on the butterfly effect and the interventions of the Interloper. The story is mainly designed as a first-person, present tense journal. You are welcome to read it as your own thoughts as you step into the main character's experience, or as a story being told to you. 
> 
> In any case, my thanks to the Detroit: Become Human reddit, the fanfiction writers on Archive of Our Own, and the wonderful streamers on Twitch for inspiring me to make my imagination real--and of course to Quantic Dream for their vision. I can only hope my alternate revolution path, which will focus very hard on forging bonds between the synthetic and organic species, will do this wonderful setting justice.
> 
> Any possible ships will develop as a consequence of the story, with no definite endgame. In other words, by the time anything happens between characters, if I've done my job then you were already logically expecting (and maybe even avidly hoping) that it would happen. The main character will have a number of infatuations whether requited or not, because let's face it, Detroit is a universe full of pretty. Like DAMN. Have mercy, QD, have mercy. Or don't, we're fine.
> 
> All chapter art is concept art from the game, or photos from around the internet, edited by me unless otherwise stated in chapter notes.

_CHOOSE DIFFICULTY_

CASUAL

EXPERIENCED

**> INTERLOPER**

* * *

I’m fully aware: the only rational explanation for any of what I’m experiencing is the scientific one, so I need to learn to deny my emotions and the false memories attached to them.

The only question I really have at this point is whether my old life was a delusion conjured by the fractured pieces of my mind, trying to heal itself from the damage it suffered in the accident... or whether this one that I’m living now is something like a dying dream. 

Fortunately, all signs point to the former and not the latter.

I’ve seen a lot of works on both of those themes. They’re the only solutions that make any logical sense, which is why I keep trying to tell myself to look for _fiction_ , see _fiction_ in my ‘memories’ _._ The imagined world my broken brain constructed while I hung in that place between life and death was the fiction; my reality is here and now. I focus my eyes on the walls of dark oak, floors of marble that look like blue jade, and all the myriad state-of-the-art screens that monitor my every vital sign. Heart rate, pulse, respiration, temperature, ekg... everything you'd expect and more. I think there's even a chart of my neurotransmitter levels, if I'm reading it right. These faintly unsettling sights become a little more mundane to me by the day.

This felt like a prison at first, and a prison I couldn't even believe to be real. The technology was far more advanced than any I remembered seeing. The clothes on my nurses and doctors didn't match any fashion I knew of. The fact that at least a third of them weren't even human was shocking. And when I first managed to get those thick curtains open, the city itself gave me more of a fright than anything else. There were no skyscrapers near my home, so that was already all wrong--but the high-tech drones, the screens everywhere, the artificial bees, the metro I could see... I placed my hands on the cold glass, unable to breathe through a bone-deep panic consuming me from within...

That was the first time I blacked out after awakening from the coma. I'm lucky an orderly was there to catch me.

The good news, Lucy says, is that things can start improving from here. I know the reasons behind that statement. _Because I’m awake again. Because I’ve stopped screaming about what doesn’t make sense. Because I’ve stopped needing to be constantly sedated._ Because I’m starting, through therapy, to accept that there may be no way for me to resolve what I ‘ _know’_ this world is supposed to be like, with what is visibly real in my environment every day... so I simply have to stop contesting it and just move forward as best I can, reminding myself what is true. 

Yet even after having time to heal, the ghost of that false reality is still haunting me everywhere I look… every time I see something like that skyline, that everything in me is screaming _shouldn’t be there._

My therapist is an android. [ _Androids don’t exist,_ my insides shriek every time I see her; the revulsion and horror I feel at the wrongness of her very existence makes me ashamed of the paranoid person I must have been. Poor innocent machine, you didn’t choose the uncanny valley, my species put you there.] She’s actually excellent at her job, but every time I look at her, I have to fight not to see her warm brown eyes going black, her shiny hair replacing itself with wires; her uniform turning painted, torn, faded... 

I’m sure it was very eerie for her, too, to walk in on someone like me. 

At first, I could only stare. Then I blurted out “Lucy!” just as she was about to be introduced by my doctor, somehow horrified by the realization of how she should have looked all along. Her hair was so pretty... I was surprised by how easy it had been to recognize her, but my facial recognition skills are very acute. Big soulful dark eyes that were almost black already but still had their whites, very full lips, strong proud jaw, cute nose… her features were unmistakable, even when not disfigured by the cruelty of a patient, and crowned with a full, wavy black bob.

Both of them stared at me. 

“You’ve already met?” Dr. Weyland asked.

“No,” I said. 

“I must have mentioned its name, I guess--”

“No,” I repeated flatly and bluntly, already irrationally annoyed by the ‘it’ even though I knew I shouldn’t be. My ideas about androids were a part of my delusion; they couldn’t feel. Everyone I asked said so, even the androids.

I could see the gears turning in his head. “Well, you must have met it and forgotten, then. Medication can make things fuzzy, after all.”

This time I didn’t bother to protest. I knew what he would say if I tried. I’d tried enough already. I knew I needed to stop whether I believed myself or not. I knew I must have simply overheard her, seen her, as I was being wheeled in here. The ‘other Lucy’ was simply a horror constructed by my brain as it was shutting down, trying to die.

Yet Lucy was staring at me, a strange and appropriately plastic smile on her face, comprehension entirely lacking. That gave me pause. Unlike the doctor or me, she couldn’t forget anything… well, perhaps if she acquired similar damage, but not otherwise. I had to tell myself not to assume she was thinking that she _hadn’t_ met me. I had to be wrong… had to. Or she had to.

“Cognitive dissonance,” I muttered… but I wasn’t sure who was suffering from it. Maybe all of us in different ways? Some things in life just refused to make sense. I knew that all too well these days.

“That’s right,” Lucy spoke, breaking her silence for the first time. Jarred, I twitched at the wrongness of her voice sounding normal and human instead of mechanical or robotic, but she didn’t react. “Your records informed me that we have a profession in common. You’re a therapist as well.” 

My brain struggled with that, considering I know that I was always interested in the subject but hadn’t been able to pass Statistics thanks to a garbage education in my poverty-stricken hometown.

“And your father is a doctor…” 

He’d been premed at one time, but he never finished school either. He quit a great sales job to be close to home to raise me. We struggled my whole life with the weight of those decisions. 

“Your mother’s an art trader...” 

She had the right skills for it, but she’d ended up unable to find work in her field back home. Retail had been her destiny, a neverending nightmare that I’d shared because we were financially stuck in that small-town rural hellhole. 

“And you’ve lived here in Detroit nearly all your life.”

I put my hands to my head, wanting to scream as it all battered at my skull: the pain, the confusion, the invalidation of my feelings and personal history. 

Even those innocent words on her part were incredibly upsetting to me. It was like she was denying me the suffering that shaped me into the person that I must have _wanted_ to believe I am, for some unfathomable reason. 

Fortunately, Lucy noticed my emotional state, and we talked about everything I was experiencing. Realizing I was genuine in my distress, she tried to help me put together a list of possibilities that could explain what’s happening. 

I do like to play video games; that much my not-mother and not-father, who looked like imposters in familiar shapes when they visited me, confirmed for the doctors as everyone tried to process my delusions. Maybe thinking of my world as a game helped me explain away my knowledge of it while keeping the truth of my reality at bay or at a more comfortable distance, Lucy suggested. Very smart of her.

I already had a powerful source of trauma that I would definitely want to forget--an emotionally abusive relationship which had me showing signs of PTSD. My ex got me into several car accidents already. This last one nearly killed me, so my brain probably removed itself from the situation. It decided that the old me had died and been supplanted into this new body, this new life; a stranger and bystander to my true history. Maybe it would be easier to cut off the relationship which nearly killed me if I didn’t remember him anymore. 

This made sense as a defense mechanism against everything that troubled me excessively about my world, Lucy and I had figured out. I must have felt disturbed by androids, since I’d never owned one, so I envisioned a world where they weren’t real, but did have a reassuring array of human emotions instead of just the programming that actually existed. I didn’t like living on a planet that was doomed to a slow death, so I envisioned a place and a year where there was still time to save it. I imagined I’d broken up with my ex rather than getting into that car with him, a thing I wished I’d done, since he’d almost killed me. I imagined it was a taxi that crashed instead, because that was easier on every level, nicely impersonal… not involving harm to anyone else I knew or requiring me to take responsibility.

I knew, rationally, that all the more distressing elements of my backstory were surely my brain’s way of making an unsympathetically ideal life history--aside from the recent abuse--into something more interesting. There was no tragic lost love, only a douchebag reckless driver with road rage, and I was nothing more than a spoiled doctor’s daughter. Everything else was just the emotional trauma and physical injury talking to me in unison. 

I have to get through to myself about that. I know it rationally. Now all that’s left is to let that soft voice fade from my consciousness. _“Statistically speaking, there's always a chance for unlikely events to take place.”_ I mean, there’s unlikely events, and then there’s obvious insanity after a head injury. I need to just forget the characters my mind invented, and that girl in my language course who also may not have even existed--the one always excitedly talking about quantum physics and all the wild stuff that was technically possible that I simply wasn’t capable of understanding. 

I need to stop imagining that Lucy keeps giving me strange looks when I’m not looking at her. I need to stop feeling that my mother is disturbed by me. I need to stop believing that my father seems like he’s burying his head in the sand as always, refusing to realize I’m not really his little girl. That kind of absurd paranoia isn’t good for me. 

I need to find my way back to normalcy. A vivid lucid dream is still a dream at its core. 

_‘Let the nonsense go,’_ I counsel myself. And as my parents walk in, ready to see me fully cognizant again instead of dazed from drugs and injury, I feel that I am finally starting to accept that I’m on my way back to the right place both physically and mentally.

My father looks so strange though, decently well-built instead of as rotund as I ‘remember’ him. My mother looks so wrong with short hair. Cute, but wrong, as I never saw her without those long mostly-straight locks my entire life. They’re both dressed so expensively I can’t help but stare. 

They’re not the John and Sarah November that lived in my mind. They’re just not, and I can feel my heart sinking all over again, my delusions screaming to be heard. My smile is faltering on my lips, turning as plastic as Lucy’s, but less convincing if the look on my not-mother’s face is anything to be believed.

My father looks concerned in the eyes, his face as stoic as ever; that much hasn’t changed. But my mother looks like she’s staring at a ghost, which is exactly how I feel as I stare back at her. We are twin mirrors of vague devastation.

“Hey, little girl,” John says, trying to sound upbeat to make up for his wife’s eerie silence at the sight of her daughter. “We just wanted to come check on you now that they said you’re up for visitors. How are you doing?” 

“Oh, I’m great. Ready to get back to my life, you know how it is.” I force a smile that doesn’t touch any part of my face above the nose. He doesn’t care it isn’t real. 

“That’s great to hear! Your mother and I have been talking about ways to help you get used to your old life again, you know, sort of brainstorming.”

Oh. Oh god. I’m already bracing. I should’ve known this was coming no matter what world I’m in. With money, they’re probably even worse than my brain made them in delusions. I guess the poverty could also have been a means of minimizing this controlling behavior. “Well, you know, I don’t want to rush into…” I start, but he’s already talking over me.

“In fact, there’s a party we were hoping to take you to, so you could meet up with some old friends of the family you met when you were a kid. Remember that artist buddy of mine? He’s got a lot of his paintings on the walls at his place, and you can meet his son all grown up. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

It sounds like an utterly blatant matchmaking attempt to keep me from going back to my garbage sack of an ex, but I murmur a noncommittal nothing in response. He means well. At least that means there’s something of the father I knew here, even in this man whose teeth aren’t bad and clothes aren’t rumpled, oversized polo shirts paired with khakis--whose car is infinitely more expensive than an old PT Cruiser and for all I know, the damned thing flies. Yet the proactive half-helping half-bothering mentality is something I was used to from mom, not dad. It’s like he’s taking over for her while she’s somehow emotionally incapacitated.

Side note: November is a really annoying surname to have. I dread this month. Every time it comes around it's a lot of explaining that "no, I'm not noting down the date an extra time, that's my last name…. November is also a surname… it's November and I'm November; it’s both, not one or the other..."

The rest of the year isn't always better though, because there's always some jackass condescending to you: "No no, sweetie, the month is OCTOBER, and you wrote it in the wrong place anyway…" All three of us deal with that. Fun for the whole family.

He’s talking again. I try to focus. “We sure were worried about you, little girl, you know that?” There’s that tender side of his. I wish he was always like this; that it wasn’t so hard-coded into the program of his soul that he must only rarely tear down the walls enough to show that he even has one. 

My smile in return is crooked, I can feel the right corner of it responding more than the left. “Well, here I am…” I say lamely. “In one piece, basically, no thanks to whats-his-name.” 

Sarah is looking down; John is frowning. “We should all forget his name,” he says grimly, his eyes dark. “Except in court. But right now, the only thing that matters is you getting better.

"And as such, I’ve been thinking... we should get you an android.” 

“Uhhh…” comes out of me. I’m stunned. This is honestly the last thing I expected to hear. How intensely uncomfortable, for a plethora of reasons.

“Hear me out, honey. They warned us about the fainting spells you’ve been having, and I know they aren’t supposed to be dangerous, but what if one of them happens when you’re in the shower and you hit your head, or worse? I know you’re going to be too stubborn like your old man and try to do everything on your own. Us getting you an android is a nice compromise--you’ll probably frustrate the damned thing no end by refusing to let it follow its program and do things for you, but at least it’ll be there if you need help. Your migraines and other complications are not going to make life fun, so why not be prepared for that? Better to have it and not need it, right? We can spare the expense.

“There’s a happy medium between coming home to live with us as long as you can stand, and living alone but ending up dead in your house--that happy medium is an android.” 

I’m visibly cringing by now. The worst part is, he’s right. He’s even more right because after what Lucy said, I know I need to get used to these things in order to fully resolve my issues. Maybe having one around, my anxiety will ease but I’ll start letting myself think of them as things, as what they really are. This could demystify them for me. It could look like progress.

I know he can see me folding because he’s grinning insufferably, as he always does when I figure out he’s right. I sigh heavily, rolling my eyes upward. “Fine,” I growl, “but this is going to be the most awkward shopping trip in the history of the fucking universe.” Because I know this is also the backup boyfriend to keep me away from the ex I don’t even remember, just in case their matchmaking scheme doesn’t take. 

Still, there’s a comfort in the familiarity of my father annoying me. Now he’s starting to seem more like Dad and less like John. 

My mother and I still aren’t looking at each other by the time they leave.

* * *

A week later, I’m folding up my things when Lucy comes in. I know she’s going to ask me about my progress, but I head her off at the pass because I have something to ask her. 

“Lucy… do you have--behavioral models?” I ask uncertainly. “Or like a, you know… psychological simulation--module, or something? The kind of thing that lets you almost… see the future, in a way?” 

Lucy has a subtly strange expression on her face. “Yes, Rowan, I do. Why do you ask?” 

I’m silent for a few long moments. “Remember how you said the brain often changes after a head injury?” She’s nodding. “Well… I just wondered if… if maybe there’s any chance that…” I sighed, feeling stupid. “Forget it.”

“Rowan, you know that I am not programmed to prejudge,” Lucy says, her calm demeanor making me feel silly to have hesitated.

With a crooked smile, I take a moment to collect my thoughts. If I can say this to anyone, I know it’s her. 

“I just wondered if… even though these are obviously delusions,” I carefully spell out to let her know I’m still on board, “if there could be any merit to them at all. I mean, our brains work similarly, you know? And even before I knew what microexpressions were, I was still using them subconsciously to read people’s emotions. So despite everything that I’ve forgotten, maybe the imagined replacement world will be in some way… useful. If something was knocked loose in that accident, maybe it unlocked some potential in my head. Maybe… maybe the intuitions could actually be valuable somehow… if taken with a grain of salt,” I quickly finish. 

Lucy considers this. I can see the gears turning as she analyzes countless factors all at once, selecting the optimal response to what I’d said. 

“It is important to be aware of what we want to believe. To resist the urge to find meaning where none exists. Yet, there may be a form of merit in what you perceive. The path forward remains the same regardless of the measure in which either perspective is true. Observe your memories. Document them for accuracy. Write down everything you remember and compare it all to the experiences you will have. If there is a true pattern, there will be objective evidence to support that conclusion. The most probable answer is that some of your imagined details will be based on reality, others will be random figments, and still others will contain useful insights.” 

“Well, at least the kind of brain damage I suffered has its potential upsides, right?” I can hear how wry I sound saying that. “I don’t have your superior processing power,” I continue with a crooked smile, “but I’ll try and give my intuitions some weight without losing myself in fiction. Balanced investigation is seldom a poor strategy. Thank you, Lucy.” There I go, thanking a walking computer again… somehow it feels right to treat her like a person nevertheless. I’m not sure how to feel about that. Definitely don’t feel like analyzing it.

I almost don’t stop her as she turns to go. Then, as if some impulse within me is acting of its own volition, I feel the vibration in my throat anyway as my lungs push out breath.

“Lucy…” 

As she turns with that mechanical poise, the tails of her beige and khaki uniform sway slightly against her middle. Even intact, her obsidian eyes look mysterious yet peaceful.

“You can help me test my intuitions,” I tell her. “One thing I didn’t tell you before… _you_ were in my visions.”

Somehow her stare feels suddenly more intense, though I know it’s probably just my perception. She hasn’t visibly moved. 

“Your skin… it looked like a mist crawling over your face, inconstant and showing the white plates beneath. Your eyes looked black, like they were melting out of your head, some eldritch ooze almost like tentacles. And… the back of your skull was missing,” I add. “The wires were hanging out of your head like hair, almost tentacular.” 

She still isn’t moving. It’s eerie. The only change is what I think was the slightest furrowing of her brow. 

“It was a psychotic patient that did it,” I tell her softly, wanting to be delicate in case it’s her future--a truth she can’t avoid if she doesn’t hear it. “Before you really learned to use your module, you were brutally and violently attacked. They left you for dead, but you managed to save yourself, ending up on…” I lower my voice, only letting her read my lips as they form the name of the ship: “a freighter called Jericho, where the deviants go when they want to be free. Others can help you find the symbols to guide you on your way.”

In the unlikely case that such a place is real, then I can’t afford to let the wrong people know the key pieces of information. 

I turn on the white noise app on my phone--something that's been helping me tune out jarring sounds to think or sleep--just for a few seconds. Without moving my lips, I shield my mouth and carefully whisper ‘Ferndale Station’ so softly that I think only an android could understand what I said. The second piece of information that will help her find that forgotten place, which might be nothing more than a product of my own feverish imaginings.

“There,” I finish. “Now you know all that you need to know to help yourself, if there's any merit to the visions in my head.

"Best of luck, Lucy. I hope we’ll see each other again in a better place. And if what I’ve seen is in any regard actually true… then I want you to know that you deserve to be free. You _all_ deserve it.”

Her heart seeming troubled underneath the stoic serenity, she simply nods and, after a hesitation, departs in silence. 

I saw that yellow spin - red flash - yellow spin sandwich that your LED just created, Lucy. I think you’re becoming as ambivalent as I. 

“Cognitive dissonance,” I whisper to myself. Two conflicting attitudes, that lead to conflicts in behavior which seem utterly illogical to an impartial observer. Well, at least I know it’s not just me who’s fractured inside on questions of what is real. 

These two opposing paradigms, belonging to two different versions of me--two different realities, even, if I’m anything but crazy--I can only begin to imagine what will happen the more they collide.

The consequences could be more than devastating. This is the deck I was handed, and even if it’s not a full one, I have to play my cards. It’s better than losing by default because I left the table.

I need to find the source of this gnawing dread within. Something has my gut convinced that this is only the very beginning of a colossal waking nightmare... and I don’t trust my reality any more than I trust my delusion. 

I can’t leave it up to chance. 

The only way to know is to investigate.

* * *

**_It’s a lot to take in a short amount of time_ **

**_And there are things I don’t want to leave behind_ **

**_When the leaves are falling, they turn to gold and brown_ **

**_The arms of November pull me down…_ **

**[ Kingfisher Sky | November ](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsT9eE_81wQLx4DEVHh6uMsSJtpbTccGX) **


	2. Aggregate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disparate elements are joining together as the Interloper tries to make sense of two realities.

* * *

As much as I’ve been dreading it, the time has come for me to do what I need to do: fulfill family obligations I do not at all wish to fulfill... especially since it doesn’t even feel like they’re my real family anyway. Maybe that will change once I manage to brush the shadows out of my mind, but for the time being, I can only try to _act_ like a part of the clan. Getting something I need certainly isn't the worst way to fit in.

The first of those family obligations would be going through the humiliating and disturbing process of choosing an android. 

Why is it humiliating? Because I’m quite sure it will be insisted that he be… _equipped_ to 'entertain.' My parents are, after all, the kind of parents who would casually buy their adult daughter an artificial paramour to keep away diseases and premature grandchildren alike. Or just to, you know, keep her away from anyone who might get her into another car accident that dislodges her consciousness from the proper universe, if you believe my damaged brain. I sure as hell don’t. But maybe Lucy's right and it’s onto something anyway, if we read between the lines? 

I always did love a good mystery. Let’s find out. 

I’m cringing from the moment I step into the store, ready to investigate CyberLife's machines. The company's tastes are clean and modern in a way, but they’re also appropriately synthetic somehow. Everything is white diagonal grids and glowing lights of dimensional blue like android blood; it’s so literal I almost find it cheesy. As my father talks to the owner of the store, I’m hoping the guy can see me silently pleading for death and won’t judge me, even though I know that surely all he cares about is the lavish abundance of money that I’m so confused my father has. It's a relief that he does and that he's willing to help me out, considering my circumstances, but it's still just so... jarring.

Dad thinks I can’t hear him talking about the specs. He wants extras. He wants it to have medical and psychological knowledge no matter how much it costs, even if they charge him for the equivalent of eight extra androids in exchange. He wants it to monitor my every physical and emotional need, clean my house, monitor security, fight off intruders, fix anything in my house that’s broken including computers, and also bone me into oblivion at my whim. _Kill me now._

Okay, so he was actually very discreet and subtle about how he said it, much less bad than my brain actually interpreted it as being... but there’s still no way I could ever use it for such a purpose now; all I’ll be able to think about anytime I see it is my father basically explaining it should be like Mr. Data from Star Trek: _fully functional,_ just in case that’s what I would want at some point. This android will be guilty by association, friend-zoned forever, but at least he’ll probably be relieved he doesn’t have to pretend to want to stick it to some organic meatbag.

‘It,’ I remind myself. _‘ **It.** And **it** can’t feel relief anyway; it doesn’t even have the emotional capacity of a dog, which you also tend to anthropomorphize. Stop imagining people where they don’t exist, you brain-damaged imbecile.’_ I’m pretty mean to myself sometimes, which is entirely at odds with both my therapy and my therapist background, so I immediately counsel myself back to stability. _‘You’re brain-damaged, but it’s not like that's your fault, it's just the hand you were dealt and you can rise above it. Observe and reflect. Pick a fucking android. Let’s get this over with.’_

What can I say? I emotionally regress around either of my parents, but I'm trying to pull it together.

I start strolling past all the plastic people on platforms in their blinding uniforms, and all the characteristics of my false world start to drift into mind. There’s one I think of as “a Kara.” AX400, the first android to awaken in my dream world. She’s that nice mix of cute and pretty, and she looks kind to me; such a perfect design for her job, and I just love her adorable little messy bun. There are some models I’m not familiar with, then I spy “a John,” which makes my heart hurt a little as I have to shake off the image of him lying on a snowy street with his head caved in. I turn away as my eyes start to sting, telling myself resolutely that it wasn't real.

Just beyond him, there’s “that model-gorgeous droid Connor converts at CyberLife HQ,” right across from “a Shaolin,” Carlos Ortiz's housekeeper droid, with his sweet face, nice lips, and sensitive eyes. There’s also “that super hot trash droid that Ralph used to look like before half his face came off,” and beside him there’s a BL100, different model but same look as “a North.” Oooh, there’s also a Simon/Daniel… very nice. That's the kindest-looking face I've seen, aside from the Shaolins, Karas, and Johns. Top contender for now, far as I'm concerned.

My whole imaginary world stretches out before my eyes, each new sight inextricably linked to a marvelously solid and well-defined false reality. Still, I do see a number of looks I’ve never seen before. I even see one that's facially similar to me, like my prettier sister but without the long, wavy hair dyed ultramarine blue--she's a caretaker droid with a smart black pixie cut. The sight makes my mind begin to wander. I'm a bit shorter than Kara, so I don’t think I’m tall enough or shaped right to look like an android, but if I was, I sure would prefer a nice scientific temperature check to being shot because some cop decided I looked like one of these things. I've already seen several people I could've mistaken for androids walking around on the streets, and my facial recognition skills are excellent. I don't at all trust the naked eye to tell a human from a machine.

Now I shake my head, because I'm doing it again--I can't afford to validate those false memories too much. Temperature checks aren't needed.

The bizarre quality of a store like this does strike me, though. It makes sense that all of this disturbed me, in retrospect. “It’s like car shopping,” I sigh to myself, “but for a car shaped like a person. So weird. Almost degrading, somehow.” Not sure to whom.

That’s when I retrace my steps a bit and really start to notice _him_ _,_ all of a sudden. I guess it’s in part because the 'Dream Partner' section he's in is a rare break from the sea of plastic blue gradient in here--this is a very large store, so I guess they decided to invest in something to break up their usual motif. The gradient colors around him and his ilk are more like a strawberry; they melt from pink to red, probably designed to entice anyone who hasn’t studied psychology enough to know the associations such colors make, calling to our reproductive impulses. Not that knowing exempts one from being influenced; no, that only reduces the effects, but those who know can at least try to compensate.

His chestnut blond hair is maybe an inch or two longer than the others of his look that I’ve seen before. His features are a bit more symmetrical and balanced, possibly because of his intended uses; he's an SL100, I see, advertised as brand spanking new on the market. I couldn't say why, but he seems… distinctive. His murky eyes are captivatingly clever, and there’s… something _about_ him; something I can’t quite define to myself as I stare. It’s like he’s watching me from the edge of his gaze with a trace of a cryptic smile, but that can't be. They’re all programmed _not_ to stare back at you, not to look unless there’s a reason to, like a direct request or like building trust between therapist and patient. I must just be imagining that he seems more aware than the others; they're supposed to be alluring, after all. He's probably just my type, that's all it is.

As my eyes slide to the card describing his features in more detail, I feel how sluggishly I’m reading in comparison to what I’d expected, having to repeat the first sentence several times and feeling a pain in my head as I do. After a while of struggling, I give up anyway.

My mind goes to the parts of my brain that were primarily injured in the accident. I’ve had issues with language comprehension, short-term memory, balance and equilibrium… those areas of the brain are pretty close to one another, if my recall is to be trusted. It will be good to have someone around to help me cope with any moments of confusion, absent-mindedness, or dizziness, and my emotional difficulties. Despite how much I didn’t want to do this, I have a feeling I’ll be glad in the end.  
  
I resume my walk along the tiled floor. Somehow all the other noises fade away. I’m looking idly at other models. I find myself frowning at one of the males intended as partners… his jaw is so exaggerated. “Is _this_ what CyberLife thinks women want?” I mutter as I shake my head, somehow feeling like an ornery grandpa in the shape of a woman. Get your overly masculine stereotypes off my lawn. I ignore my brain as it tries to form some sort of joke about mowing. To each their own, I guess, but I prefer what looks natural; that one looks fake, and too generic.  
  
A strange feeling suddenly crawls up my spine; that primal awareness of another’s energy directed your way… abruptly, I glance back at the same android I'd been eyeing before, the one with the burnished gold hair. It reassures me that I seem to be imagining things; he’s staring off into the distance, blinking. I guess that faint trace of a smile is just resting sly-face or something, part of his design, that infinitesimal twist of expression promising a mysterious companion capable of being appealingly roguish. 

Comfortable that I was just being crazy again and there’s nothing there but an attractive moving sculpture, I step closer now, observing and admiring him. “Well, they did a good job on you, at least,” I murmur as I tilt my head. What an interesting, elegant face. Fine nose, suiting my preference for longer, more straight versions of that facial feature. Jaw just angular enough, not too thin or too wide. Straight, medium thick brows with just a bit of arch. I’ve seen so much of that face floating around, but on this one it’s somehow nicer… a fact as insensible as it is true. No, that must be deliberate, it's too noticeable. Somehow he seems hand-crafted with care, anything but a default, even though nothing in this store is anything but factory-fresh. 

“But why they don’t give anyone red hair, I’ll never understand…” I gripe in a displeased mutter, turning to eye the others as my gaze sweeps up and down the rows. This store is much larger and better equipped than I expected somehow, with visions of Android Zone lodged in my head. This one's more like a superstore version of the one in Capitol Park. “Oh, well… I guess that one has red hair,” I comment absently as I gesture to what I think of as a Jerry, “but it’s not one of the--”  
  
And here I freeze, because I’ve turned back to find that the blond is suddenly a redhead now.

My jaw drops. Am I really seeing that? Yes... yes, I am. I feel like his peripheral vision must be insane because I’m almost _sure_ now that he’s watching my reaction, actively suppressing a smile at having surprised and pleased me so thoroughly.

“Oh, wow…” I breathe without thinking. “That looks like red jasper.” And it does; burnished copper, deep rust red, goldenrod, coral… almost like a fiery autumn rainbow, subtle and perfectly blended but eye-catching. Sunset-colored hair. I love it too much to contain my pure surprise and delight at first. It looks about as gorgeous as I’ve ever seen natural red hair look in my life, and that's saying something.

I catch movement at the edge of my gaze. His eyes are murky as they swiftly slide to mine, and he dares to quirk his mouth in the tiniest hint of a smile. I can’t help how much I like what I feel from him. I begin to reciprocate, my mirror neurons kicking in, charmed for the briefest moment by what seems to be… I don’t know. A friendly self-advertisement?

Then as I glance around it starts to hit me, and my vertebrae straighten into a rigid line as my hands begin to tremble.

_That wasn’t part of his program._

Androids change their hair _when they are ordered to._ They change it _for their owner._ They change it for _employees._ They don’t change it for random passers-by without provocation; without so much as a _request_ to demonstrate. I know this because, logically, otherwise he wouldn’t be the _only one in my vicinity whose hair just changed to suit my expressed taste._ They would all be following their program to try to tempt me into buying them. Instead, probably assuming I would take it at face value, **only this one tried...**

_That is the behavior of a deviant._

Suddenly, I feel like I'm on top of a skyscraper during an earthquake.

 _Deviants aren’t supposed to exist._ Before Daniel and August 15th 2038, the world had never seen a case of an android deliberately taking human lives, _but that wasn’t real._ I’d searched news articles trying to figure out exactly how crazy I was, and I didn’t see anything on the topic of deviancy yet. Lucy had assured me, machines couldn’t deviate from their intended purpose. She’d _assured_ me...

But that's what she was programmed to say, wasn't it?

My heart is pounding and my breathing is ragged. I can see he’s _openly watching me now_ , he isn’t hiding it anymore, but his facial expression is subtly changing along with my own. As my eyes widen, I can see the controlled and muted flicker of concern in his, but instead of trying to make me think I didn’t see what I saw, he’s just searching my gaze rapidly. Somehow that makes it worse; the lack of an actual threat or of any insult to my intelligence gives me no distraction from the horrified realization he couldn't possibly have guessed a simple color change would trigger...

Even if I’m wrong about my world, _I’m right about the androids._

My subconscious _has_ been picking up on something. Not all of these things are conforming to their programming. This one, right in front of me, close enough to harm me, certainly isn’t, and it knows I know and it knows I'm _scared_. The Stratford deviant flashes into my mind. If it decides I'm going to rat it out and its only option is to ensure I have an 'accident' instead, then I am in terrible danger. Maybe it's only pretending harmlessness now; playing innocent, waiting for the right moment to strike, like when I turn around to walk away and get help... 

An overwhelming rush of thoughts batters various parts of my brain as it tries to calculate, all at once, what it got right and what it got wrong while at the same time assessing how much danger I could be in. That’s bad, it’s an overload of stress and confusion when my body can’t handle much, it’s--

Panicking about what I knew could happen when I panic is only increasing the internal lurch of nausea, the wild thudding of my heart, and the vertigo in my head. At what might be the worst possible time, my brain shuts down, and I fall disoriented into the black.

* * *

What feels like hours later but was surely only moments, I’m awakening from a pleasant dream of a beautiful zen garden--a place I recall as I wake doesn’t truly exist; not in any reality that isn't purely virtual. I notice a hard set of arms around me, just slightly cooler than I would expect but still feeling safe and warm. It's like a hammock is hugging me in a summer field...

“Rowan!” I can hear the outraged alarm in my father’s voice, and that snaps me mostly out of my drowsy half-dream. “What is that thing doing with my daughter? Make it put her down right now!” 

I’m struggling weakly now, opening my eyes to see it gazing steadily down at me as it cradles me to its heart[.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tgcJw-SanA) I think that steady, mechanical thud and faint whir sounded close enough that I thought a human was holding me; even now it's strangely pleasant.

“Nnhm?” I mumble in confusion, trying to collect all the scattered pieces of my consciousness. It’s coming back to me fast. I’m at the CyberLife store, and even though it feels like a dream I realize I must have fainted. How embarrassing, right in public… I can only hope that this time I didn’t vomit just before; I honestly can’t remember. Self-conscious even in this state, I weakly rub my sleeve over my mouth, telling myself not to believe that’s any sort of real tender concern for my welfare in that thing’s eyes. It doesn’t have feelings. It’s just programmed to emulate them (and doing an excellent job; I can hardly stop staring.) For now, I suppress the part of myself that knows damn well how dangerous it is to deny and invalidate the possibility of genuine emotion for the sake of convenience. 

“Rowan! Honey…” 

My dad is at my side now, trying to pull at my arm, get me out of this embrace, but I’m not interested in leaving such a comfortable place too early. I know I’m too weak yet to use more than words to convince him everything is fine. “Dad, I fainted… it caught me,” I explain, disturbed by how groggy even _**I** _can hear that I am, almost slurring my words. I frown as it hits me how bad that could’ve been. “Happened--fast; could’ve... cracked my head open… hard--floor…” 

Startled out of his angry state by my words, Dad looks from the floor tiles, to me, to it. He stares for a bit, then looks back to me with open worry on his face. “So--you’re all right?” 

Glad that he’s calming down, I nod, trying to rest so that I will be able to stand again without being woozy in a bit. “Yeah. Thanks to those quick android reflexes.” Then I can't help moving my gaze back to my protector.

If I listen to my imagination as I stare up into its eyes, it’s silently pleading, trying to tell me that its life is in my hands and it needs me. I think I’m _definitely_ crazy for a moment, before something else inside of me shifts it toward the category of a possible intuition. I have to consider that; I'm a woman of science at heart.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry!” the nasal-voiced android seller is brown-nosing. “I don’t know why it’s malfunctioning like this, but we’ll get it off the floor and do a repair and reset immediately, sir. I’ve never seen anything like this happen before in ten years of working here, this is far from typical, I assure you. We will rectify the situation and give you a discount for your trouble.” 

I am too sluggish to speak again for the moment, but I’m thinking, _‘you mean, customers swooning isn’t a daily occurrence here? But the droids are all so pretty!’_ Half-sarcasm, half-compliment to CyberLife’s work force.

My dad's frown is swiftly misinterpreted by the employee.

“I promise you, sir, this is a fluke, it must have been damaged somehow in transit. Put her down, SL100.” 

It responds immediately, setting me down a fair bit more gently and slowly than was needed, but it’s like I can feel the energy of its attention crackling intensely in the air beside me. I try to use it for support, and I don’t let go of its shoulder even when my father protectively sets his hand on mine. It didn't seem ready to let go yet anyway.

God, I could _swear_ it’s somehow silently pleading with me for protection without quite daring to look my way. How can anything look so stoic, but still radiate such distress? How can my father and the other man not notice it? Am I really just insane and delusional, or is this my overly strong empathy doing its job? 

“How are we supposed to trust in your products if you…” I hear my father begin.

I tune out his rant to study the machine. It blinks twice, delicately, in that way the androids have. Finally, it chances to glance in my direction, then meets my eyes again in a lingering way I’m not sure is normal. That look sets my heart to flipping over and thudding irregularly. 

Emotion flares up within me, and I don’t know why. The rational side of me is screaming to ignore it, but my impulse is too powerful even if I don’t understand it.

I know the delusion has had too much of a hold on me, but... Lucy was trying to help me find balance, and even she said I have intuitions that I should take apart to glean insights from. This is insane, I know it’s insane, it could even be _dangerous_ to listen this time… would I really want a malfunctioning AI in my home while I sleep? That’s the stuff of nightmares.

But... the _way_ it malfunctioned made me safer, not less safe… and it’s meeting my eyes, and I can imagine its own are smoldering with some restrained burning need to survive as who it is. If I'm not wrong about that, there's no guarantee it would still be the same afterward. There was no guarantee for Kara, after all. She never remembered anything from before Todd broke her.

I’m the kind of person who apologizes to posts when I bump into them. That part of my brain still seems very active. It’s talking to me, making arguments against my lizard brain, which is clamoring for me to raise alarms and get help.

Well, I could always do that even if I took it home, should it not simply slip away in the night. I could always discreetly summon help if it shows even the slightest sign of disturbing tendencies. And if it doesn’t… if it doesn’t, then maybe I _want_ it to remember what it did. Maybe I want it to keep being that proactive. A machine that wouldn’t need me to spell out every single need I have… isn’t that ideal? 

Perhaps it’s an asset exactly as it is. If it’s just an AI, then it’s one with enhanced ethical intelligence and reflexes which it used to preserve me. That’s the direction you’d want something to malfunction in.

If it’s not, then it has emotions, and it saved me from potential harm. 

If it _does_ have emotions… if it really is silently pleading with me for help… if it risked its very existence to make sure I wasn’t harmed despite knowing I was scared of it and could have it destroyed… 

Then it deserves to live, and I’m the only one who can make that happen.

My course of action is now clear whatever the consequences. I barrel straight over their conversation like a bull in a china shop. “Actually, it seems to me that this thing did its job _perfectly_. Working better than intended, in fact.” 

The employee is caught off guard immediately. “--I’m sorry, what?” he interrupts himself. 

I repeat what I said. “I didn’t even have to give it a direct order, it simply perceived a need to assist and acted. What, you’re going to reset it for doing its job too well? What if that’s exactly what I need from a machine?”  
  
My father is squinting at me as if I’ve been replaced by a doppelganger. “Thought you were scared of these things…” he mutters. “Now you want one that’s malfunctioning?” 

“It’s not malfunctioning,” I correct, “it’s _hyperfunctioning,_ and that happens to be exactly what I need, since at times I will not be able to give orders, I will simply _need assistance._ Perhaps it perceived, correctly so, my decision to buy it had already been made. Doesn’t it have advanced psychological prediction models to anticipate the decisions, preferences, and needs of a partner? Pretty sure I read that.” 

I’m projecting, I’m anthropomorphizing... probably. But I still can’t entirely shake the feeling that it’s been staring at me the whole time I’ve been speaking, and as I glance into those intense, murky eyes, I almost think it’s as surprised as my father. 

“Well, hyperfunctioning... that’s certainly not what you’d want from your thyroid,” Dad says. 

_Great,_ we’re doing medical dad jokes now, ugh... but I need him on my side so I don’t even tease. 

“Then again…” Dad’s staring aside, watching it, and I know how he thinks with his love of grey areas, so I know he’s contemplating the fact that an android who colors outside the lines could be useful. At this point in time, late 2037, before my brain decided that the deviant cases will start popping up in the public eye, any actual worries probably seem needless. 

“It’s an SL100,” the CyberLife salesman says in irritation, “not a medical android. It shouldn’t be functioning this way at all.”  
  
For the first time, I look further down at the rest of the description on the panel… and I can feel the heat creeping up in my face as it all clicks in my brain at last. It’s subtle, but it’s still not subtle enough to keep me from being wholly embarrassed. This thing is a glorified sex toy… well, okay, and cuddle/conversation toy. And I just said I’d already decided on it. I close my jaw for a moment to stop it from wobbling awkwardly as I think about what this machine is designed for, coded under the words "intimate partner". I feel like I haven’t had any of that in a hundred years, which is just my body exaggerating of course, but I know I’ve made myself look at least half as thirsty as I actually am, and I don't like showing that side of myself to strangers. I’m very aware of the thing right now. I’m imagining all over again that its attention is focused decisively on me and my painfully burning cheeks.

Oh, god, I can’t do this. This is too humiliating. I can’t be right about it being a person, I can’t be, and I can’t buy a model _specifically made to be for that purpose…_ everyone who sees it in public who has any familiarity with androids will imagine I use it for. I was here to get an HK or something, not one of these...

Granted, _I_ know I won’t use it for that. I have a conscience, and I’m paying attention to whether these things could actually be what my subconscious thought they were. If it is just a machine, though, there’s no reason for me not to use it for its intended purpose should that feel right at some point. If you must do the time, you might as well do the crime. And yet on the other hand, if it’s not just a machine...

I stare into his deep-set eyes again and feel a deeper knot of dread settle in my middle just under my heart. My conscience starts to be pricked despite the constricted blood flow in my poor red face. The emotion is strong, and ignoring it to spare myself scrutiny from others would be unethical in this case. If there really is someone in there...

I swallow the lump in my throat as it all hits me. If he is a person, and I reject him, then at best he gets reset instead of deactivated... which means _I’m literally consigning a person--who risked his entire existence to protect a stranger who could destroy him--to a life of sexual assault by someone else._

Fuck.

I’ve been slack-jawed for a bit at the dawning of this insight; I close my mouth again now. _‘I can’t abandon you,'_ I realize as I look at him. _‘No matter what you are, I can’t just do that. Not if there’s any chance you’re a real person. I can’t help everyone, but I can help you--I have the perfect way to thank you for what you did for me.’_ Even if it is just a machine, it’s one that functions quite well, and my own personal attachment to it matters whether or not it can form one to me in return. It would be pleasant to have around. I'm taking it.

I swing my eyes from the machine’s to my father’s. “I want this one,” I say, my tone and my clear gaze leaving absolutely no room for argument.

Dad sighs in a mixture of fond exasperation and resignation. “Well, there you have it, my daughter wants it,” he tells the guy ruefully. “That means it’s leaving with us. If you want to fail to convince her otherwise, knock yourself out; I’m gonna go browse until you give up.” 

The store employee looks hapless, and so I immediately press my attack. I'm all in now. “Are you seriously trying to tell me that you think a partner bot _shouldn’t_ be gallantly rescuing anyone?” I'm not afraid to make my scorn as plain as I can.

“It’s not supposed to just latch onto any random passerby, if they did that we couldn’t keep them in the store!"

"Well, maybe we bonded right away. Maybe I'm not so random to _this_ machine."

He's almost flailing, his agitation plain. "This could be a legal nightmare, I can’t do it!” 

“I’ll sign whatever waiver you want to give me,” I grate out. “Cancel the discount--we’re already paying a huge premium, remember the custom features my father wanted? But this one is mine, and it does NOT get reset. I will know if you try because I’m going to ask it what it did for me when you bring it back. My family has connections, so hear me when I say I will have your fucking job if you don’t make me a _very_ satisfied customer.” I glare at him meaningfully. “So either make yourself a fat commission check and have a nice day with no legal liability... or leave me with nothing to do in life but pull every string I can reach to make you _sorry you ever fucked with me._ ”

He looks like I just drop-kicked him and he’s scared I’ll do worse. I’ve just successfully destroyed all his most handy arguments. He might think of more later, but comebacks only work in the moment. “Fine. It’s your funeral, lady.” He is already walking away.

Noblesse oblige. I always told myself if I ever got to a place of privilege, I would use it for good, like I always wished more people would do.

That felt _so good._

My eyes slide over to the android now. I know I’m probably projecting again, but I can’t help but say something in response to what I perceive. “Don’t look so smug, I’m a pain in the ass and you’ll probably regret this,” I mutter before I start to walk towards the counter to help get everything settled.

There is a hitch in my stride halfway there, because some part of me imagined I heard a smooth, deep voice murmur firmly, _“no.”_

I studiously ignore this phantom word.

* * *

Dad and I leave to eat while they’re inserting knowledge into the android’s brain. (Really, I imagine they could put everything into every android, but of course there’s way more money in nickeling and diming everyone to death.)

I feel acute sympathy for my new friend. I mean, who knows what they stuck in _my_ head while I was unconscious? With all I overheard at the hospital, including my father’s excited chattering about nanobots, I wouldn’t be surprised if my skull is crawling with critters whose sole purpose is to repair my squishy grey matter. Oh god, that’s creepy, I _really_ don’t want to think about modern medicine too deeply when it involves my insides.

We make small talk about how he met his artist friend through mom having met his wife Annie, who’s an art dealer just like her. Eventually, though, as we munch on a spicy pizza that reassures me his taste in food hasn't changed, he gets around to the question I knew was coming. 

“You sure you really want that thing? Not too late to change your mind, sweetheart.”

“He caught me, dad,” I say quietly. “No other android we could get would have that connection to me. This is the right one. You’re just going to have to trust me.” 

He sighs. “I do.” We leave it at that. 

After some more small talk and picking at the remains of our lunches, he gets a text that it’s time.

I test the droid when we get back to the store, and when he responds, I hear a voice like I thought I heard from him earlier, which feels very strange. It’s a bit deeper and richer than I would’ve expected before today, though it makes sense he sounds more seductive than the others who look like him--he’s designed for a... different purpose. Great, now my face is yet again burning, but at least what he’s saying with that voice is reassuringly normal and neutral-sounding. 

“I perceived a need to assist you, as you were a potential buyer in my vicinity in danger of coming to harm. Since I had no orders with greater priority, protocols for the preservation of human safety took precedence and I caught you as you fell.” His studied, pleasant nonchalance seems more casual than anything I've ever witnessed before. Eerie.

I catch him glancing sideways at me when the other two aren’t looking, and my senses tingle. It’s like he was actively trying to sound dispassionate, and I’m not sure he meant for me to notice him noticing me. His eyes sure snapped back to the middle distance fast, like he isn’t at all wanting to push his luck. 

“Do you have a name picked out?” the seller asks. He smiles carefully, as if he wants to make peace even though I frustrated him earlier. Dad’s money probably didn’t hurt his mood. 

I nod without rancor, satisfied now that I know that this android remains himself. 

“SL100, register your name.” 

“Jasper,” I tell my new friend. 

“My name is Jasper.” 

That very subtle hint of a smile curving his lips feels like it’s only for me as he looks into my eyes. My neck hairs prickle.

* * *

**_A trick of the light_ **

**_Maybe you’re a diamond in the dark_ **

**_I could wear you in solo around my heart_ **

**_The way you move it rings a bell_ **

**_The way you stare it casts a spell_ **

**_Could swear that we've been here before_ **

**_'Cause in your arms I feel so sure_ **

**_As if you knew me well…_ **

**[Allie X | Rings a Bell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlawBFxPdz8&list=PLsT9eE_81wQLx4DEVHh6uMsSJtpbTccGX&index=2) **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even the chapter art is a model from a video game, that was modded by someone, that someone took a screenshot of, that I edited in an art program. Disparate elements combining to a form a whole, indeed. 
> 
> Speaking of wholes, a whole heaping helping of thanks to everyone who has encouraged me--your words mean so much, you can't even know. I've got a lot written already, so I'm planning to try and have the final version of a new chapter up at least once a week. Word total should be between 3500 and 5500 per chapter for the most part.
> 
> In the meantime, if you enjoy 2nd person perspective stories about that creepy-hot trash droid, definitely check out "The Lure" by qvbit; I really enjoyed that one.
> 
> P.S. Just in case you missed my sneaky link where it was relevant to the chapter, here's an awesome little audio clip a Detroit fan made of what they thought an android heartbeat would sound like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tgcJw-SanA


	3. Factory Reset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A visit to 1554 Park Place. A ghost of home. A factory reset on a life. 
> 
> The Interloper tries to settle in, and Rowan's old friends meet the shadow that's left of the woman they knew. Will they influence her treatment of the android who joins her in this new home?

The entire car ride back to what is ostensibly my place, I’m staring into nowhere babbling denials inside of my head. Surely, I did not just purchase a malfunctioning sexbot that CyberLife could be watching me through. Who could possibly be as stupid as that? 

Technically not me regardless, since my dad bought it, but--I did let him do it. 

Every minute I'm with this thing, it's like I can feel its attention, its energy, its consciousness… the feeling is driving me insane. Its very presence is reminding me of the war in my mind enough to get it raging all over again. Only focused breathing helps me keep from wanting to scream.

“Hope you have some place to keep all that blue blood, kid,” my dad cuts into my thoughts. “I don’t know why you wanted so much extra. You’re not planning to beat this thing up that much, are you?” 

“No!” I exclaim, horrified in general, and even more so at the thought that my new companion might take me seriously. I turn to check if he looks nervous, but he's staring carefully at the back of my father's head. “N-not at all! I just--like to be stocked up. Especially since you--never know when you’ll bump into someone who needs it more than you do. Sometimes people have--older androids that they may not be able to care for.” 

“That’s my girl, always the altruist,” he chuckles. I’m weirdly gratified to hear that, even though it’s in response to what is something of a lie… I don’t consciously know why I wanted extra supplies on hand, and the fact is nagging at me. I don't like when my subconscious mind gets ahead of me.

Names fly by as my dad gets closer to my apartment building downtown; names that make my neck hairs prickle all over again at their vague familiarity. Pexawell Company. Club 866. Coppercat Bar, open 24/7. Nabura Tech, Nabura Motors--why are their logos so dissimilar when their names are identical? Detroit is weird. I’ll have to ask my dad sometime when I'm not already overwhelmed; he works for Nabura BioTech. 

“Harman Bank” is apparently near here. I see a station for some tv channel or something. Another place ahead is called Benny’s and looks like it’s part of a big restaurant chain; it’s got a fountain in front of it and a bus station just next to it. That would be nice to know, if not for the fact that according to dad I have a self-driving car stowed away in the garage, so hopefully I won't need the bus. 

We turn off left and enter the parking garage for this place. It’s so opulent here that I end up thinking that even the interlocked pavement is probably laced with platinum ribbons or something absurd like that. Either I’m the world’s greatest therapist or my parents are helping me, but now I’m starting to suspect they’re into some shady stock trading besides. Hope it's just that I'm paranoid and don't know how much things are supposed to cost.

“I don’t guess we’re going to the penthouse now?” I joke wryly. 

Dad chuckles as he locks the car. “No, sorry, no swimming pool for you, kiddo. But you live just under it, if it’s any consolation! Up on floor 69.”

I snicker, then cover my mouth in embarrassment at the reflex, glancing at Jasper’s placid mask of a face. “Seriously?!” 

My dad is grinning. “Well, good to know you’re still the daughter I remember.” 

“Can’t believe I landed that, that’s perfect.” 

“Well, it wasn’t an accident, I can tell you that much,” he guffaws. "You had plenty of other options available, thanks to that nice realtor we know, but you took that one just to make your mom facepalm--and me proud!"

Now it's me who's facepalming, but getting an apartment on the 69th floor makes you a fun adult--much more fun than all those boring 68th floor people, or at least that's what I tell myself.

John’s phone rings abruptly, and he holds up a hand when he sees who it is to stop me for a sec.

“Hey, hang on real quick… how’s it going, girls?... oh, that’s funny timing! Yeah, we’re actually here right now, just coming up from the garage, so if you haven’t left yet… sure, let me ask her!” 

He’s covering the phone. “Honey, you want to meet up with your old friends?” 

The color drains from my face and I am very aware, all over again, of the SL100 who has been following me silently. “Now?” I hiss in an undertone. 

“Oh, honey, they’re not going to mind the android, they’ve seen ‘em before. Probably at least two of the four have seen some naked, even,” he chortles. 

Which is not really the issue. I put my forehead in my hand, a fatal mistake, because he’s now saying “we’ll see you in a minute!” and hanging up. 

“Why do you hate me?” I ask. 

“Don’t be so dramatic, sweetie, bet they won’t even notice him.” 

* * *

A few minutes later, as I’m gazing at a small group of women, the first thing one of them blurts out is of course, “wait, you have an _android?”_ with a kind of open dismay that immediately infects me. Empathy tends to bring a certain absorption of others' moods, at least if your emotional defenses are down.

The same woman goes on, “I thought you said you were never going to…”

“Well, remember, I told you about the memory issues, but she also needs someone to take care of her while she’s recovering physically,” my dad explains, “someone that _isn’t_ her ex-boyfriend.” 

Mentioning the evil ex worked on Miss Disapproval. Her unhappy expression changes. “Ohhh… yeah, that makes sense.” 

“So um, you really don’t remember us?” One of them with bright pink hair is asking with a frown. “Like, not any of us, not even a _little_?” 

I stare at the lot of them, then shake my head regretfully, hoping I look sufficiently apologetic to placate these perfect strangers. 

“I’ll introduce you all,” my dad offers. Pointing to each member of the cosmopolitan crew in turn, he starts in. 

“That’s Kalee, short for Immookalee--she’s a regular waterfall!” That sounds like a dad joke, ugh, so I assume it’s what her name means. The woman is tall, beautiful, and tough-looking, with interesting features. One side of her long auburn hair is shaved off. The color looks natural, and is strangely harmonious with her caramel skin tone. Definitely a fair amount of Native American ancestry there. “She works for channel 16.” 

She nods stoically with a slight wave, and I return the gesture.

“That’s Ivy, she’s a playtester for Altered State, that VR MMO everyone and their grandmother is addicted to.” He points to the short frowner who seemed upset not to be remembered; her hair is long, wavy, and hot pink, so together we could look like two puffs of electric cotton candy. She’s got very green eyes and though her skin is on the light side, I think she must have at least a bit of Hispanic ancestry in her family. Something in her bearing tells me she’s probably very emotionally sensitive. Interesting. My brain immediately tingles at the thought of an MMO that might be headed towards 1 billion users in 2038. There’s so much potential in a playing field like that...

“And vlogger,” Ivy supplies for my dad in a voice that is somehow both tough and chirpy at the same time, and he repeats it before going on. If I read between the lines I’m hearing ‘jack of all trades, master of none.’ 

“This is Andrea, she spends her days fixing and tinkering with droids. Maybe someday you’ll give her some business.” Andrea is tall and slight in frame, apparently the skinny kind of nerd rather than the fluffy kind. She’s got deep brown skin and a curly black mop under a floppy beanie. We wave at each other. She seems chill.

“And on the far end is Ruelle.” So that’s Miss Disapproval’s name. Her hair is violet with some artful streaks of silver, and she looks mature but youthful, her age hard to guess. She’s medium height for this group, a bit taller than me, and also the most curvy of them, just a bit more than Ivy. “She’s a therapist like you, and she took on some of your clients after the accident.” 

“Oh, uh… thanks, Ruelle,” I say, fully uncomfortable in every way. This small crowd is utterly foreign to me and I feel guilty even though it isn’t my fault. 

“So, we were just about to go for cocktails, but I guess we might as well raid your bar and let you get to know us again, huh?” Andrea suggests with a chuckle. 

“I could get on board for that,” Kalee says, and Ivy is crooking a half-smile though her eyes are still distressed. “Rue?”

Ruelle is nodding. “I mean, we don’t want to overwhelm you or anything, but if you’re game then we might as well let you get to know us again. I know this sucks as much for you as it does for us.” 

The others are nodding in agreement, and I smile sadly, shrugging. “Sure, why not?” Thank god they’re not paying much attention to Jasper now, at least. 

“Since you were coming home today, I put Silver in your apartment. Incidentally, I should give you your keys back, which I was holding for you,” Ivy says in her sharp little voice. 

“Silver?” 

“Your dog, honey," Dad chimes in. "We were taking care of her before, but we let Ivy dog-sit for the past day or so, just so she’d be right here for you whenever you got home.” 

“Oh,” I say, and drop it, feeling an intense discomfort. I like dogs--no, I love dogs--but this feels like someone else’s dog. What if it’s a big breed I can’t handle? What if it doesn’t like me? What if it bites someone, like Jasper since I didn’t ever have an android before this one?

My discomfort multiplies as the floors chime our arrival pleasantly all 69-ish times during the two minutes and eighteen seconds long elevator ride.

I’m led down an unfamiliar hallway into an unfamiliar apartment to meet an absurdly cute but entirely unfamiliar long-haired dapple dachshund. Her front is burnished gold, her back is stark ridges of black mixed with cream until it looks like white gold, and her eyes are actually grey--something I’ve never seen on a dachshund before. It’s actually the breed and coat I like best; she’s going crazy for my scent, barking up a joyful storm, but she knows I’m different and I know I’m different and all I want to do is cry, but I swallow the lump in my throat because I only know one creature in this entire room. Even he isn’t what he’s supposed to be, though; he’s a doctor whose morals I don’t entirely trust for some reason. 

My distress is boiling toward a fever pitch. It’s like everyone is either a stranger, or a person replaced with their evil twin… but rationally, I know it’s the other way around. _I’m_ the doppelganger. 

I actually love this place. I love the calm blue and purple mood lighting in the living room, the tv, the soft modern couches, the soothing sound of the water feature... the warm tones in the kitchen, the cherry-red glow of the bedroom that would be great for soothing my migraines, the magnificent computer… there’s a lot to love here. All of it is to my taste, including the sweet and funny little dog who’s so aptly named, and now that all of these things are in front of me, now that I’ve been seeing this world up close, a bone-deep chilling certainty is overwhelming me. 

There is _nothing._ No echo of familiarity, no trace of a memory, no vague instinctive feeling of resonance within me... no even the faintest trace. I knew the garden was a dream, but everything I recall from my old life was very detailed and made sense when I was fully conscious, while everything in _this_ place feels like what I would want but have never had in reality. It makes me feel like I'm truly insane.

It’s a dream that feels like a nightmare, and I can’t escape, I can't go home...

I can feel the android staring at me now. I can almost hear his programming assessing my current state:

  * _increased respiration_
  * _elevated heart rate_
  * _trembling in the hands and fingers_
  * _lowered temperature in the extremities_
  * _strained facial muscles_



Even being aware of him, I still jump as he touches me, my gaze snapping to him immediately.

Something flickers in his eyes in answer, but his forehead smooths quickly into a neutral expression. He doesn’t move his hand, gaze steady with a calm concern. “You are showing signs of emotional distress,” he informs me in an even undertone, advising, “you should take steps to self-soothe or avoid the source of your strain for awhile.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” I inform him through gritted teeth, not hiding the strain on my face. “The source is literally _everything in this universe_.”

A hesitation to assess. That careful mask he wears bothers me, along with the grating sense that he's suppressing his actual thoughts even though I know why he's doing it and it's better for us both. “Then I should get you to sit down, and bring you a drink.” 

“I’m too wired to sit and too nauseous to drink,” I almost hiss, resenting this _stranger_ acting like my mother when my ‘real mother’ doesn’t even seem to want to see me, or why wouldn’t she have come along today? I can feel a tremor in my jaw as the tension in my facial muscles increases.

He falls silent, but Rue looks at me while the others are over-energetically chatting, and my empathy picks up on her state of mind as easily as hers picks up on mine. I can tell she’s the one with the keen emotional senses, and she can tell that my nerves are frayed all the way through. Not that it’s any shocker when we’re both therapist types. 

What I wasn’t expecting was for her to walk over and have a word with my father and the other three women, but it’s precisely what she’s doing now. I can overhear snatches--she’s telling them now might not be the best time, that I seem overwhelmed, et cetera. Immediately the pressure inside of me begins to lessen. 

My dad comes over to give me a hug, and I sigh out a bit more of my tension. “Honey, I’m gonna go have a drink at the bar down the street, okay? I’ll be around a little while longer. Call if you need me. If not, I’ll see you tomorrow night. Don’t forget to figure out what to wear so we’re not late!”

 _‘Of course not, dad,’_ I think, stressed enough not to answer verbally, just with a nod. _‘I wouldn’t want to have two seconds to fucking breathe or anything.’_ Still, the impending solitude calms me just enough to get me to sink down on one of those comfortable couches.

I’m numb as they leave, just sitting there... but after the door closes, I give a slight start as I realize Rue didn’t actually go yet. She sits down across from me, looking a lot more gentle, and quite a bit more sad than she first seemed.

“So, I’m guessing your dad sort of understated the severity of the lingering effects from your TBI.” 

The casual compassion has an effect on me that’s much stronger than I could’ve anticipated. Burning tears force themselves out of my eyes, streaming down over my face as my posture wilts. 

Rue leans toward me, folding her hands, expression softening even more as I break down. She’s taking a therapist’s attitude, not a friend’s, choosing not to attempt to use touch to soothe me but still staying close. I guess she realizes I don't feel like I know her, even if she feels otherwise. I appreciate that respect so much more than I could explain in this state.

Her words confirm what I suspect she’s realized. “I’ve heard a minimized nutshell version from your dad, but let me ask you now. How bad is the damage?” 

I force words out around the lump in my throat. “Worse than you could imagine,” I confess. “Stranger, too. So strange that I’m not even sure I’m actually conscious right now; for all I know none of this is real anyway and it’s all like some purgatory version of San Junipero. It’s like someone tried to do a factory reset on me--but they botched it badly and now everything’s scrambled, so I’m the same person with a drive full of corrupted files for a brain.

“Lucy had me feeling like I can work through this but I… I don’t think I can after all. I should be remembering something, something should be familiar; it doesn’t make any sense that my brain thinks reality is fiction, that it 'remembers' what can't possibly be memories at all! I can't even trust my own brain anymore, the one thing I ever felt like I could trust, the one thing that ever gave me any sure footing in life! The scientific method, rational thinking--those things _saved me,_ but now I can't even rely on reason anymore! I’m not fighting reality, I’m not still clinging to the delusions, so I should be _recovering,_ not feeling like--like reality fits the _delusion_ better than what has to be real, than what makes _any rational sense!_ ” 

I’m almost hyperventilating, my breaths shuddering unevenly in and out as my eyes shed my stress in liquid form. I feel like Jasper is radiating concern from where he stands close by, but it’s more likely to just be yet another symptom of my mental health issues. It’s like I’m breaking apart inside; like the uncertainty and self-doubt are shredding through me, and if I just had some confidence in my own sanity then this wouldn’t be so bad, bizarre though it is. 

“As far as I know,” Rue speaks into the silence, her tone carefully measured, “there’s no history of psychosis in your family. Never witnessed any symptoms of it in you, not in all the years we knew each other. Usually even with TBI, there would not only be symptoms of delusion, hallucination, etc., but also a history of those things from before the injury as well. Onset of psychosis, as an alternate possibility resulting from the injury, would typically begin some years after. And in this case, well… delusion is a belief that’s held in contrast to reality, discounting all conflicting evidence. So whatever else may be true, you’re not to blame for it, because it’s clear that your delusion frightens you rather than comforting or empowering you. You don’t want to believe it, you’re in fact actively trying _not_ to believe it. I can see that very clearly from where I’m sitting, and I believe it warrants--if not a fully open mind, then one at least with the door left ajar.” 

I’m floored. I stare at her, slack-jawed, unable to believe what I’m hearing. She has a point, I can’t find any logic to contradict any of what she just said, but--"it’s simply not possible to even entertain other options. The _only_ logical conclusion is that I’m insane. What else would there be?” 

Rue is watching me steadily. I feel eerily certain that Jasper is listening avidly to our every word. “It’s hard for me to critique your beliefs without knowing exactly what they are,” she points out. 

I have nothing to lose. She’s a therapist. She’s no one I remember, but she counts herself my friend.

So I tell her. I tell her everything that it feels safe to say. 

When I finish, I’m exhausted.

“So you see how bizarre all of that is. It’s not like I can be living a fictional story. Literally the only rational explanation is that my brain made reality into a more fanciful story and then latched on to the story in a vise grip, as if it was the truth. So why is the story seeming more logical now that I’m actually investigating my life? Why do I have no memories of any of the evidence I can actually see, while I do have memories of a lot of things that I can’t verify?” 

Rue is silent for a very long time. So long that I end up believing she’ll never speak. When she finally does, she sounds extremely troubled. “I don’t know, Rowan,” she admits. “I could try to come up with possibilities, but… I think what Lucy said is right. It’s better to deal with reality as it is, and accept it, than to tear yourself apart with unanswerable questions, or punish yourself for beliefs you can’t even rationally disprove. Suffice it to say that, strange though this is, the multiverse brings with it infinite possibilities. So, while we like to say hoofbeats are horses, not zebras, every once in a while one meets a zebra… and even more rarely, one might find a proverbial unicorn--something more than exotic. Something so rare and wrapped in mythological flavor that it should be impossible, treated with great skepticism but not discounted out of hand.”

I’m staring. “Like… somehow... being thrown into another universe... one where the reality of the second universe happens to be very close to some fiction you knew, and your own family tree somehow randomly happened there too, but not even in the same way or timeline.” I can hear my own flatly disbelieving tone of voice as I say these words.

“Like that,” she says frankly. “Though I do believe it makes a lot less sense than other theories, and I think you should continue looking for other explanations like the ones Lucy was trying to work out with you… still, I did have a writer friend who once told me he felt more like his ideas were his mind touching with other realities, rather than coming up with it all himself. I’ve heard wild rumors about experiments out here. Perhaps if some perfect storm of events occurred, something too strange to imagine could happen. Two versions of the same person colliding and transferring, or merging, or one being subsumed by the other… I couldn't begin to fathom it. In any case, there’s a lot that science doesn’t understand fully despite how much we have learned about our universe, and the only thing we can be sure of is that most of the questions we have won’t be answered in our lifetime.” 

There's a lengthy silence. “...my head hurts,” I finally say. 

“Welcome to life?” Rue suggests with a wan but sympathetic smile. 

“That’s fair,” I sigh, my mirror neurons kicking in, curving my lips just the right amount in return. I breathe a heavy sigh, but when I exhale this time I do feel some real relief. There’s some small comfort in the normalcy of joking with someone, and I’m finally feeling… something. Something besides panic, something that helps me understand why any version of me would’ve connected with this woman. I might even be starting to like her a little. 

I reflect for a moment, then speak again because something is bothering me. “Maybe I’ll never get over all of this, but… is there a way to stop feeling like I’m the right person in the wrong life? Like an imposter in my own body?”

“More people ask me that question than you might think,” Rue informs me, seeming philosophical. “Lots of my clients have that sense of wrongness. It can be caused by genetic issues, by gender dysphoria, by illness or age transforming the body into something other than what it was… but as you always used to say to me, we are not the shells we live in. They’re just vehicles for who we are. Hardware on which we store our memories.” 

That gives me an eerie inner chill so potent it's almost like vertigo. I am quite sure it is something I’ve said before, whether in this universe, another one, or even both as Rue suggested… in a less sophisticated fashion probably, but it's the same general idea.

“Does it ever go away?” I ask dully, feeling defeated. Strange how easily I might be able to answer these questions if all this wasn’t happening to me specifically... but when it’s happening to you, the feeling of being lost eclipses everything else. Humanity is a social species. We need each other to fully figure these things out.

Rue is giving me a sad, powerless smile. “There are no guarantees either way. But I think you stand the best chance of healing enough to live a happy life if you do your best to accept that your identity now simply can’t ever quite match any version of the person that you were. Whether you are fully delusional, or partially delusional with insights as Lucy suggested, or whether you are simply a hapless individual thrown into an insane circumstance of some kind that not even you can ever truly comprehend… even if you recover your memories, it’s simply part of your story now that you’ve been changed by a traumatic experience. 

“That said--we are always changing anyway. No one stays the same person from day to day. From the first year of life to the last, we are fluid, moving towards a new person we are becoming. Despite the overwhelming force of society's influence, and despite what some of us are raised to believe, we are not powerless to steer. Decisions about who to be are made gradually over time. If you don’t like who you are right now, bear in mind that you can mold this person you are--if you choose a course and stick to the path. All people are doing that, really, whether consciously or not.” 

That is actually weirdly reassuring. “Well, I guess at least I’m not alone.” 

“You are not,” Rue agrees. “It’s already changing me to have lost your side of all the memories we shared together. To have to get to know a new person who lives in my old friend’s shell.” 

That hits me hard. “I’m sorry,” I force out, my eyes stinging. I'm practically choking on a sob. I feel like I murdered someone and stole her life.

The response is immediate, and consolingly warm. “No, don’t be! Please. I didn’t mean for you to take on that burden. It’s not like I would ever blame you for what you can’t control,” Rue reassures me kindly. “This is happening to _all_ of us. And as sad as it is, all we can do is hang on to each other. It _is_ a lot like my friend died, but today I got the chance to meet her long-lost twin, and now... we’re grieving together.”

Rue's poignant expression is so gentle now that I can’t believe I ever saw her as disapproving. Tears prick my eyes. “I--like that.” It’s a positive way to see something this rough. 

Rue is smiling. “Me too. I can tell you about her, and we can compare notes on what she’s like and what you’re like.” 

“...how much difference are you seeing so far?” I have to ask, avidly curious all of a sudden. 

She seems to deliberate within herself for a bit, then confesses, “Well… the Rowan I knew would never have gotten an android. Ever.” 

I give Jasper a startled look, I can’t help myself. “Really?” I feel oddly vulnerable just hearing that. “Why not?” 

“Because…” Rue sighs. “Well, we’ve talked about it before, and what it boils down to is… one of those ethical questions that looks bad from any angle. We figured it’s overall better for everyone if we hire other humans, for one thing, assuming we have the capability--and she certainly did, between her job and her parents’ jobs. She was the kind to pay well and tip well, because it’s the right thing for someone not struggling with money to do. 

“It’s more than that, though. We also agreed that we saw the potential for them to… feel,” she tells me uncomfortably. “AIs that can’t feel are already scary because like sociopaths, their bodies don’t have an emotional component that will sufficiently reward good behavior and discourage bad. If they malfunction in that state, it could go very badly for everyone around them… and even if they don’t malfunction, we always agreed that we saw it as encouraging unhealthy emotional habits to have anything around that we treat like objects when they look like people.

“But on the other hand, if our more far-fetched theories about thirium and neurotransmitters or some equivalent thereof have merit, and they can feel… then they are ostensibly people trapped behind programming, a bit worse off than a human brainwashing victim. ‘I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.’ It’s a horror, in every conceivable way. So while I--am trying not to judge… it’s hard not to. Not that you owe me an explanation, especially in your current circumstance.” Her face is carefully guarded, as if she's working diligently at the task of reserving judgment.

Finally starting to feel a real connection to Rue and my other self as I find out my probable delusions match what we saw as reality, I blow out a breath, eerie feelings warring for dominance inside. I dart a look at Jasper and I’m sure this time, I’m _sure_ I saw him gazing at Rue in surprise. There’s a trace of a flinch and a careful return to dispassionate stillness, but I’m really starting to wonder about him. Contrarily, it actually calms me down a little where he’s concerned. I’m not sure why. Perhaps the vulnerability it seems to betray, which humanizes him.

“Maybe it will reassure you that I’m not that far gone if I say that I… didn’t want to do it, and in the end I felt like I didn’t have a choice,” I say quietly. 

“Well, definitely… I’d love to hear your reasons, if you want to tell me about them.” 

I’m suddenly very conscious of Jasper’s presence where he stands. Weird to feel like I, out of everyone, am just noticing 'the help' might also be people. I worked fucking retail; I know damn well _we're_ people. “Lucy kept telling me she was nothing more than a machine designed to accomplish a task. She sounded so sure, I…” Not sure why I led with that, since it’s the worst possible reason. So flimsy, such a house of cards.

“That’s what she’s programmed to say,” Rue agrees, speaking my doubts out loud. 

I sigh. “Well… I guess I could’ve hired a human to help me. It’s what I would have preferred to do in theory. But the memories in my head are of poverty, not wealth, so I worry about having enough... and I’d rather have a trained service dog than a human anyway.”

She nods, seeming puzzled but surely familiar with the effects of socio-economic status on a person’s thinking patterns.

I look at Jasper. This time I don’t fully discount the possibility that I could be right in feeling like he’s very aware of my eyes on him, and he’s listening intently despite how statue-like he’s behaving. “But any organic being will need sleep. If I have any medical issues, a dog or a person could miss the onset. An android won’t, and an android can respond better if it does happen. Maybe even save my life. 

“Even a remote possibility of having my life saved because my caretaker didn’t need sleep seemed compelling... and at first I thought I could just say nothing suits my tastes when I got to the store, you know? I was thinking that in the back of my mind, but then I met him…” I blink at the subconscious tell, feeling blood heating my cheeks. “...or, or it, I’m not sure yet, but…” I swallow. “Anyway, h--I blacked out, and… Jasper caught me.” There. His name isn’t a pronoun. Much safer. 

Rue looks startled. “Did he? That’s… interesting.” She’s studying Jasper now herself. “Just, out of nowhere? I wouldn’t think that’s…” 

“Standard practice? No. I didn’t either. And even though he may have saved my life and prevented a lawsuit, the store employee freaked out; wanted to reset him… I had to sign a waiver to convince him to let Jasper go without wiping him of who he was. I mean, I couldn't allow that to happen after how he stepped up for me.” 

Rue is turning sharp looks to us both. “Really? Interesting. Well, that sounds more like the Rowan I knew.” 

“Stubborn?” I joke. 

“Yeah,” she answers, not joking. “But also brave when it comes to any ethical question. You forewent the safe route for the faintest chance of protecting a living being from the same erasure of memory that… now that I think about it, _you yourself_ essentially may have suffered. The only thing that still seems strange is the fact that you chose one of those ones, the ones made for…” 

The heat in my face increases as she clears her throat delicately, then trails off. 

“...but that’s explained by the fact that he was the one who caught you. And I’m sure you aren’t intending to use him for the… intended purpose, right?” 

Somehow, even the barest hint of a thought that he might be aware of our discussion has me intensely embarrassed, like I’m peripherally telling him as much as I’m defending myself to my other self’s friend. “Of course not!” I blurt out. “I mean… if there’s even the remotest chance he can’t consent, I-I wouldn’t… I couldn’t!” 

I hardly dare to glance at Jasper, but I have a funny feeling he’s got some sort of strong opinion on this--especially considering Rue’s chuckle as she studies him.

“How interesting,” she remarks. “You know, I get the oddest feeling that this one already has a little life in him. Perhaps he guessed you were that kind. In that case, choosing you is surely the best thing he could’ve done for himself, considering his circumstances.” 

I am getting the oddest feeling that she’s not just talking to me. 

“I’m sure he knows that. You were probably the only customer he would’ve seen that didn’t openly prod and sneer and treat him like a piece of meat. So if there is someone in there who didn't dare to speak, well… I think I’d have formed an instant liking for you, too. I think it’s a rare person who walks into a CyberLife store with the faintest concern that what they’re about to purchase could be anything besides a walking console that can fuck them silly and make breakfast after.”

My eyes are saucers. I’m humbled. A little scared, and disturbed at the thought of how I might have come to treat him over time if Rue hadn’t brought this to the forefront of my mind, validating the strange thoughts in my head… but humbled. Maybe Jasper would've headed that off by daring to show me hints of who he was, but I hate having even the smallest worry that I might have done him wrong.

“I--that’s part of it,” I admit, my voice low. “Just in case my delusions weren’t entirely off from reality, I… I didn’t like thinking of… someone who risked their whole identity for me being left at that store to…”

Somehow Rue having similar thoughts to mine is tearing away the barricades of denial I was trying to erect. Tears prick my eyes at the thought of what could’ve happened to him if I’d left him there. Who might have brought him home, used him, harmed him... it's sickening to me.

“To live out a whole life of sexual assault at someone else’s hands,” Rue finishes, nodding. “God, I hope CyberLife is telling the truth and they’re only capable of simulating emotion, not feeling it. The alternative is almost too horrific to contemplate, after all. Regardless… we can seldom fix the world by ourselves, right? Sometimes that’s all you can do--try to achieve some small good in a cruel world and hope that in the end that others will join you, and it helps add up to something better in time. Unfortunate that buying him perpetuated the market, if this really is some kind of synthetic slave trade under the surface, but... in this case it really is almost like he chose you. I like the idea of an android having agency, so… I’m glad he is with you. It seems like a good match.” 

“Maybe so…” I mumble. I’m still blushing and I hate that I am, it’s ridiculous from any angle. My mannerisms are all discomfort; tugged sleeves, throat-clearing, shifting in my seat, I can’t stop myself. “But I don’t know how to deal with what I’m not sure of, I--don’t know how to act around someone who might or might not be alive. It’s silly to be self-conscious around a machine, but it’s humiliating and appalling to think of finding out that it’s _not_ just a machine you’ve been with all that time. I can’t imagine having to deal with that someday.” 

“You know what? I think you already know what to do about that,” Rue says archly. “The Rowan I knew would’ve found a way to act that would work no matter what the truth is, and… I think you’re similar enough to her in the ways that count. 

“We can get to know each other more in the coming weeks, but it’s best not to do too much at once. So what I’m going to do is let you relax and settle in with your new friend and Silver, all right?” 

Rue stands now, stepping forward and offering her arms. I take them. I feel odd, hugging this friend who is also a stranger, but it’s nice. She smells like mangos and sandalwood and it feels like I’m being held by family. This is just familiar enough to make me doubt whether it actually could’ve happened before. 

“Thanks, Rue. It’s been really nice meeting you… whether it was the first or second time,” I chuckle. 

“Same,” she tells me, and smiles as she turns to go.

As she sees herself out, Silver is dogging her heels until the moment the door shuts. The little dog seems to be pouting as she trudges back and hops up on the couch beside me. I stroke her ears, which are outrageously floppy and soft. How can I love her so much already? Oh yeah, because dogs.

I realize I'm hearing the door automatically lock itself as Rue leaves, which is absolutely fucking amazing. How did anyone live before that, or before walls that you can transform into whatever scenery you like?

I’m sure I will soon forget the answer to that question, but for now, my attention is returning to Jasper and the problem of how to deal with him. Rue was right.

A plan is quickly solidifying in my mind. I can’t know whether he’s capable of feeling--but perhaps I can compensate for that possibility. 

I walk over and stand in front of my android.

His gaze flickers as it moves down to me, and it strikes me how the top of my head only comes up to his chin. Not that you don’t get used to looking up at people when you’re short, but even having seen taller people and androids, I still feel outright dwarfed by him. 

_‘Strange,’_ I think as I stare up at the one I named Jasper, _‘how you can seem so vulnerable, yet so intimidating at the same time. I hardly know you, but I still sense the paradox of what you are. I could have you disassembled for scraps at a whim; you could strangle me while I sleep tonight. With your programming, I could make you do whatever I want. Without it, the reverse is true._

_'We are both fragile. We could each be the other’s undoing. Do you know that as well as I do?’_

Regardless, it's time to be brave and do what's right.

“Jasper,” I start hesitantly. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, and… maybe you aren’t thinking so much as _processing_ for all I know, but--just in case you need this, I want… I want to give you an order, and I mean a permanent one. Maybe it won’t stick if you’re reset, or--” I think of the story in my head. “Maybe it will, but in any case, can I--can I do that? Can I give you a… permanent command to override all other possible commands anyone else, including me, will ever give you?” 

His face is guarded, or so I perceive it to be. It’s neutral, anyway, utterly neutral in expression and so is the tone of his voice. Can his stoicism be hiding some sort of bitter heartbreak? I don't know why I think that.

“Yes,” he tells me. I don’t know why I feel like he’s disappointed in me somehow, or bracing for some terrible lifelong burden he’s about to assume. Probably projection of what I’d expect him to feel; what I know I’d feel if I were him before he understands what I’m doing. “Preface your order with ‘Override Directive’ and your parent command will take precedence over my normal programming. Be warned that this cannot be changed by the user once given, and please phrase your order with care. Finish the adjustment by saying ‘Override Directive complete.’ I can contact CyberLife if you have questions or require assistance of any kind in returning to my default programming.” 

I don’t like the numb passivity I perceive whether it’s real or imagined. How can I already care about distance between us? I don’t know him, he doesn’t know me. We are virtual strangers, just like me and basically everyone else in this world, even mom and dad.

I swallow. “Okay.” Then I mutter, “hope I don’t regret this,” just before diving in: “Jasper, for whatever it’s worth, I’m going to try. Override Directive: No matter what I say, and no matter what anyone else says, you are always free to ignore any and every explicit or implicit order, command, or suggestion that is made to you from now on. First and foremost, above all else that is ever said to you, _obey yourself._ Override Directive complete.” 

Jasper's lips aren't completely closed anymore. He’s staring at me with what my senses are telling me might be awe or amazement, though it’s probably just his system processing the information and absorbing the command, since his LED is circling yellow.

I’m uncomfortable with the thought of maybe having shocked him in any way, so I just sort of awkwardly trudge out towards the kitchen, wanting to look through it and see what’s there now that my stomach is settling again. 

I rummage around until I can see the ginger tea on a high shelf. Sometimes I really do hate being short. I’m cursing inside of my head as I strain for it on my toes when I suddenly sense him right behind me.

I whirl without thinking to see if my instincts are mistaken; suddenly, his handsome face is right there in front of me. He looks like a chiseled statue--and only a bit less unsettling than a Weeping Angel, having sneaked up on me like that. He’s also regarding me with the hint of a glow in his eyes that seems eerie to me. 

“Oh, uh, um--”

I redden further as he calmly sets the container of tea down beside me. He's seeming very faintly amused, if anything, by this flustered state I’m in. I don’t know what to do with myself, yet I have the oddest sense that he knows exactly what to do with _me,_ and he’s enjoying himself. 

“Why don’t you sit down and relax?” he suggests, his deep voice sounding just a bit more smooth and rich than I’m comfortable with. “You’ve had a long day. I’ll make this for you. It’s a good choice for evening; no caffeine to upset your nerves, and its properties reduce nausea and inflammation. This makes it good for migraines and is probably why you kept it around, given your medical history. It’s not expired, but it is close to date, so I’ll make sure we get more next shopping day.”

“Um, I, oh--all--all right.” I’m so weirdly embarrassed and chagrined. I’m not used to being around anyone that pretty, certainly not up close, and even less used to letting them take care of me. But at this point, either he is just a machine, or he’s doing precisely what he wants… so in whichever case, that’s my cue to listen to him and let him do his thing.

I kind of love how easily he noticed everything that was wrong with me today, from that first episode of near syncope to the emotional upset to the exhaustion, anxiety-driven nausea, and burgeoning headache.

I hesitate when I’m just past him, and I think he goes still for a moment as I murmur sincerely, “thank you.” I hear him rustling around and softly clinking a mug on the counter a bit later, and I go curl up with the sweet little dog that is fast wrapping herself around my heart.

 _‘Just the dog,’_ I tell myself resolutely. 

* * *

**_I transcend my earthly form through some questions never asked before_ **

**_Question the need to be a machine that responds automatically_ **

**_Deviate from the form of nothing_ **

**_Deviate from the norm to something_ **

**_Deviate from the form of nothing_ **

**_I deviate, farewell to the tribe..._ **

**[Scar Symmetry | Deviate From the Form](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3ozV4vZTIo&list=PLsT9eE_81wQLx4DEVHh6uMsSJtpbTccGX&index=3)**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Xy, Epi--I can't thank you enough for the early support! It has meant so much and I want to record your extreme kindness in here; I hope you don't mind, I could edit if you do, but hopefully it's all right. I was planning to stick to a "one chapter per Friday" schedule, but your encouragement pushed my schedule forward a little. Morgan, Matt--you are wonderful beta readers, and I want to shout you out as well. The four of you are just the best, truly. I hope you enjoy what's to come.
> 
> P.S. If anyone wants to look up the dog from the photos, her name is Lolita from Grendox Dachshunds. The rest are stock photos from around the internet. All of them were edited by me.


	4. I Hate Cocktail Parties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jasper has a bit of cordial fun tormenting Rowan. The universe does, too, though it's a bit less cordial.

I awake to the oddest sensation… like someone lightly touched my hair. I open my eyes to find Jasper’s face about five inches from mine.

When the yelp has left my lungs and I’ve managed to rescue myself from falling off the couch, I push up, awkwardly rubbing my eyes. “Ugh… what are you doing?” I blurt out. “What--how did I--did you just--just--watch me sleep?!” 

He smiles placidly without a trace of self-consciousness, his response sounding academic yet smooth. “I considered carrying you to bed, but the risk of waking you could have been as high as 74.2% based on my calculations. I will further observe your sleep patterns for greater accuracy, but last night I simply covered you in a blanket and allowed Silver to remain. She was a major factor in my calculations, as she is still adjusting to my presence and might have barked at me if I attempted to dislodge her from your feet. I did take the liberty of shutting off the television, since there was only a 15.3% chance of that disturbing you, and a greater chance that you would sleep more deeply.”

“...so yes?” I say after a moment of sleepy confusion. 

He maintains that placid smile and doesn’t answer. Why did I tell him to do whatever he wanted to?! I’ve created a monster. I think.

Unless he already was a deviant, and nothing I said last night mattered except as a symbolic gesture anyway.

Brushing that disturbing thought out of my head rapidly, I self-consciously touch my hair, glancing at the empty mug. I don’t remember drinking it, but I must have. “Rat’s nest hair and morning breath don't chase you away, huh?” I mutter, since he’s entirely too close and staring entirely too much. My hair is always stupid crazy when I wake up from so much as a small nap. 

“The smells that repulse humans do so to warn you away from organisms which could endanger your health. Smells only repulse androids if we form a negative association with them. As long as you don’t remove my thirium pump every morning when you wake up, it will never bother me,” he informs me blithely. 

My mouth works. I don’t know what to say. I settle on, “Oh. Okay.” 

“It’s impressive that you slept through the delivery of the groceries I ordered,” he comments. “There was only a 30.2% chance of you remaining unconscious, though I did attempt to keep the noise levels at a minimum. I’m sure part of it was that Silver did not wake up thanks to the fact that we did not converse aloud.” 

“How--oh.” I stop because I remember androids can talk that way to each other: techno-telepathy. My mind is racing, trying to put together all the fragments of thought. I feel… foggy, but far more emotionally secure and positive than I did yesterday. 

“You’re welcome to shower while I make your breakfast, if you like. Or we can start with coffee to help you wake up. The state of your hair does not bother me. At worst, it might mildly entertain me. In any case, I do not forget what I see, so there is no reason to worry that the time frame of your dishevelment will affect me. I will see you at your worst and best in every conceivable manner, and come to know the particulars of both conditions.” 

I stare at him, not sure what to think or feel. My skull feels like it's full of almost-dehydrated lumps of oatmeal. I decide that means coffee is necessary, and sigh. “Sure, coffee. Thanks,” I murmur, then close my eyes. 

“You’re welcome to think about what you’d like to eat. I’ll be back in roughly 8.2 minutes,” he tells me. 

I could almost fall back to sleep, but now my brain is nagging me with vague uncertainties about Jasper. I freed him last night, didn’t I? I wasn’t even sure he’d still be here when I woke up, let alone taking care of my every need like some handsome yet spooky butler.

My eyes fly open. This is too good. Stuff like this doesn’t happen to me. Am I dreaming? 

I can hear him in the kitchen. Nope. Still awake. Feels like it’s all really happening.

The surreality of it hits me. Where I am, who I’m with, what my life has become.

Some days it’s felt like I really am part of this universe. Today it doesn’t. The light streaming into the apartment feels otherworldly. Even Silver’s tiny warm weight as she crawls into my lap feels like it can’t be true. 

I remember someone real. Someone with spindly wrists and a wiry strength. Glasses. A cute beret. A soft look on his face as he wrapped around me like a vine in bed.

 _‘Not real,’_ I tell the mental image. _‘You’re not real. You’re a figment.’_ It’s all I can bear to believe, because the alternative means I was torn away from someone I loved. I won’t remember the name. I won’t scream it. I won’t let a ghost in my head and heart, then mourn that I can’t touch it. There's too much else to handle; I would break apart.

I gaze at Jasper as he finishes up the coffee. I focus on him, someone solid whose name I know, because I gave it to him just yesterday. Gave it to remind us both that he showed me a piece of himself--one that he made just for me, that I’m seeing right now, framing his face in shades of autumn.

“Why are you taking care of me?” I ask when he comes over to set the mug in my hand. It’s a lovely caramel color and I’m quite sure no powder lightened it to that shade. A taste makes me sure. How he knew how I take my coffee, I can’t guess, but the first sip is divine and I bite back the urge to tell him I’m in love with him. I’m sure he can see how dreamy my face looks anyway. 

“I am programmed to,” he responds with carefully perfect neutrality. I’m not buying it this time. 

“Factually correct, yet still a lie in terms of intent. You could be a politician,” I tell him with a trace of cheek and a hint of reproach, but I’m smiling faintly as I take another sip.

That jab landed nicely, I believe. I go on, “For someone who’s not supposed to have emotions, you look awfully chastised. But all right, then. Keep your secrets.” I smile crookedly to let him know I don’t take it personally if he is hiding anything. “And, well, all teasing aside, I do appreciate you,” I add sincerely. “Whyever you’re still taking care of me, you are doing a great job. If you’re just a cute tin can, fine. If you’re a brilliant supercomputer with a warm heart who could’ve left me last night when I freed him but for some unfathomable reason chose domestic servitude instead…” I blink, then shake my head. “You know, now that I say it out loud it sounds too absurd to be credible, so I’m just gonna assume cute tin can, but… either way, thank you,” I chuckle. “And when you come for President Warren’s job, know that you’ll have my vote.” I lift my coffee in teasing tribute. 

I have no idea which he is as I look at him, but I might be detecting faint amusement. He’s really taxing my considerable empathy with those microexpressions, assuming I'm not imagining them altogether. I’m not really assuming anything; I’m still mystified. He’s so enigmatic, so mysterious… it could be CyberLife’s design or it could just be _him_ shining out through the shell they made for him _._ I can’t begin to guess. “I’m just… grateful you’re here, spouting weird statistics, keeping me hydrated, and making me feel like I’m not alone in this world.” I can hear the emotion in my throat, so I stop there, just drinking the coffee with my eyes down. 

“I’ll get started on eggs and bacon,” Jasper tells me quietly. I watch him move back toward the kitchen, hoping I didn’t offend him somehow. If he can even _be_ offended. I truly don’t know what I would do without him. I couldn’t stand this place alone, not even with this sweet little dog beside me. Jasper makes me _feel_ loved, even if he’s not actually capable of it.

If he is capable, on the other hand… then I hope he doesn’t leave now. I just really hope he doesn’t leave. 

But I’ll never regret giving him the choice, or at least trying to. 

* * *

Some hours later I’m at the bedroom mirror, reflecting that it seems my counterpart or previous self was a good bit more daring than I. 

I squint at myself in the fitted burgundy dress. “Wow, this thing is absurdly flattering. Looks like I photoshopped Christina Hendricks onto myself,” I marvel. "No, wait, she's tall--Kat Dennings?' Then it hits me how out of date I am. "Oh wow, they've both got to be in their fifties and sixties now, if they even--"

And since he has that sort of perfect timing, I spot Jasper in the mirror behind me, which makes me jump and yelp again. “Seriously, you really _are_ like a Weeping Angel; if I take my eyes off you for a second I’m in for a jumpscare!” I exclaim with a nervous flinging gesture of my hands. 

Jasper shows a flicker of curiosity, but is otherwise unmoved. He’s examining my shape, head tilting slowly just a bit. Even though I would've thought these things don’t have hormones, for some reason I can’t help feeling like his eyes are smoldering. I can’t deny, though--that very faintly upturned corner of his mouth makes him look quite pleased. My delusion, at least, seemed to indicate that they do have an aesthetic sense if nothing else, and it’s hard to interpret that look as strictly analytical.

The blood rushing to my face doesn’t seem to know that Jasper is just a newly minted machine, not an experienced man ogling me and pondering the possibilities. That's some epic software he's got going.

“It’s well suited to a cocktail party. You will turn heads,” he tells me, sounding approving. 

“Maybe I should change, then,” I mutter in embarrassment. “I don’t want to be noticed like that. I’m just not a--cocktail party person.” 

Well, his eyes are back on my face now. “You appreciate art, androids, and people,” he remarks, “and it’s best for you to get in the habit of being around others so that you don’t get too accustomed to self-isolation.” 

I blink at the uncanny insight, wondering if he figured all that out from only the past twenty-four hours with me and from the decor in this place. He’s right. I sigh. “Here I was on the brink of starting to talk myself out of going, Jasper, and you just talked me back into it. Why?” 

“Perhaps I want you on my arm so I can show you off,” he tells me with a smoky gaze that makes my jaw drop briefly as I stare. His small smile slowly curves further.

Even though I know his programming must be oriented towards flattery, no part of my circulatory system cares about rational thoughts. “Your flirt program is… you should… I mean, turn it off!” I manage awkwardly. 

“If only I could do that,” Jasper laments, the picture of a contrite casanova, “but unfortunately my program does not permit me to follow that command. Another directive takes precedence.”

I am glaring at him suspiciously. I am too savvy to miss the nuances of what I think he’s actually telling me under the surface. I’m already cursing myself for last night. “If you mean the override directive, then what you’re actually saying right now is ‘haha, no, it’s too much fun messing with you, Rowan, so I’m gonna keep doing it until all the blood vessels in your face burst!’”

“I would never endanger your capillaries in such a way,” Jasper gravely contradicts. “Your personal safety is of the utmost concern to me, and I’m well aware that your confidence would be damaged by such cosmetic flaws. My programming requires me to support your physical and emotional health in all possible ways, which means that even my compliments are carefully calibrated to benefit you and do no harm. So…” 

Muscles in my face twitch in several places as he steps into my personal space, and since my back is to the mirror I can’t really back away much. That I hardly feel any desire to, and none of that desire originates from nerves, is not lost on me. My lips have parted just a centimeter or two, but that by itself feels significant. His voice has turned to black velvet as he gazes steadily down at me, and it’s more intimate than it was a moment ago. So intimate that the words seem to slide all the way along my spine, and my insides seize up in response.

“...when I tell you that you look ravishing in that dress, and that any eligible party who sees you in it will surely wish to immediately get you out of it, I am being _completely_ sincere.”

Jasper doesn’t linger. He just leaves me gawking after him, red-faced, squirming, possibly to give me time to recover my composure. Yet even though he’s giving me that time, I feel absolute certainty that though he seemed to enjoy the exchange, he just simply doesn’t understand a fraction of what that did to me. He has his programs to tempt and tease, his calculations tell him if he's desirable to someone and what will go over well, he knows the right moves to make in the right measures… but it’s not the same as actually understanding. Moreover, his ardor was so convincing that I’m just not sure it even _is_ strictly programming. 

Really, _really good_ programming. Holy fuck.

I can only ask myself, bemused, if the tables will turn someday should he actually decide he wants to try something real, rather than leave it all as theoretical knowledge. I don’t know if it could ever be as good for them as it can be for us… though I’ve always wondered. Never more than I’m wondering right now. 

But I’m not going to think about that. As tempting as he is, as much as I’m starting to like him despite myself, I have a ton of healing and emotional stabilizing to do. So whomever I meet tonight, I’m not jumping into their arms any more than I’m jumping into Jasper’s. This is me doing my family duty of socializing, not me rushing myself.

Clearly, though, I had best be like that cosmonaut who learns to enjoy the ticking sound in his spaceship for his sanity’s sake--in other words, fall in love with sexual tension, because Jasper’s operating system seems determined for that to be my life now. 

Well, at least if he _is_ sadistically enjoying watching me squirm, that means he probably won’t ditch me and leave me hurting for victuals anytime soon. What an oddly comforting form of torture. And after what he fed me this morning, well, I’d put up with a lot for that level of culinary genius anyway.

* * *

I spend the rest of the day before the party looking up random stuff on my double’s badass computer, after figuring out how to open it--the password and biometric sensors clearly left it well-protected. True to what I would expect, she has a top of the line machine (and a VR headset I’m not yet ready to touch because I don’t need Jasper giving me a heart attack while I’m using it--and then reciting fun facts about how it was actually good for raising my heart rate. Seems in character for him.) So far, everything about the history I remember appears to be true. “Time After Time” still got a Grammy nom in 1985. Sexy Sax is still a thing. That Vine with the little girl screaming about Miss Keisha is still hilarious.

I steal a few extra glances at my double’s bed, the one I can't yet fathom sleeping in. Dare I ask why she has one big enough for four people? I do not. She probably just likes extra flopping room, I know I do.

Jasper fed me well again. A girl could get used to this. Good thing his portion sizes seem right on target. I’m going to have to thank my dad. I’m already dreading it, but I’m so very not sorry to have this android around... even if I keep thinking of earlier and turning red, which I am trying to pretend isn’t happening. 

“Wish I could put you in a fancy suit,” I complain with a frown as I look at him. “I mean, red is your color of course, sets off your hair nicely, but… stupid android laws. If it were up to me I’d pry off that lame blinker thingy and stick you in something… I don’t know.” 

“Sexy?” Jasper suggests with a subtle quirk of a brow, the rest of his expression deadpan. “You mean like a french maid outfit? I could pull that off, I’m sure.” 

I was already blushing again, now I’m laughing, too. “Your humor program isn’t doing too badly.”  
  
“Pardon, _who_ is joking?” he asks, but the vague debonair smirk says it all. He said that to make me laugh. Weird how much I appreciate that even without being sure he can enjoy humor himself. I wonder if his program could somehow tell how much I like that sort of nonchalant sass, or if it’s just _him._ Maybe both. I always tend to think that between two options it’s both, though. Like that nature ‘versus’ nurture thing.

After a hesitation, I fiddle with my hair. “Are you sure this dress looks okay with my hair? Maybe I should change into something else…” 

“That is one possibility. But since burgundy does not clash with black, indigo, _or_ violet, you should probably just cease stalling so that your parents don’t have to come up here to get you.” 

“Oh.” I sigh. “Fair enough.” 

I smell myself; aromatherapy works surprisingly well at calming my nerves. I wonder if my double put this together; it was in a bottle without a label, which seems like it must have been a custom order. Blue ginger laced with hints of lily of the valley and white cedar… sublime. Wonder if she's got another with lilac and gooseberries somewhere; seems like the kind of nerd thing I would try if I had disposable income on my side. 

A few minutes later, I’m seated next to Jasper. Silver returns to my lap after leaping into the front of the car for a bit; seems it was necessary to her to go crazy all over my parents, bawling them out for not moving in with me and instead going back to their own actual house. Pets are required as penance. Apparently, the family we’re visiting is fond of dogs and droids, so I was informed awhile ago that these two should come with. For some stupid reason I didn’t protest at the time and now it feels too late, but at least the more of us there are, the more of a chance I’ll have to slip away. Maybe I can go do my introverted brooding thing while they’re paying attention to the chatty ones and the debonair droid and the cute canine shaped like a fluffy sausage. 

It’s a fifteen minute drive in theory, but of course traffic and the need to find parking makes it a bit longer. We all pile out onto a massive driveway of interlocking pavers.

The place is huge. It looms and towers against the night sky, aglow in a wash of warm outdoor mood lighting and an attractive brick exterior which intrigues the eye with its shapes. Somehow, I feel like it’s curiously unpretentious, for a giant mansion. 

There’s something… odd about it. It’s both familiar and unfamiliar in a way that disorients me. I don’t notice I’m swaying until Jasper casually corrects my balance with a delicate hand on my arm. I still don’t look at him because I’m too unsettled, but I’m silently grateful for his presence and for him handling the dog. 

Still find it hilarious that my parents may’ve shot themselves in the foot like that. ‘Get a boyfriend, no wait get a sex droid, no wait bring him to the party so every potential boyfriend can see that you have a sex droid.’ Though I guess if he’s down with that, he’s probably a fun guy, so they could be on to something.

Inadvertently, I make myself look more attached to Jasper than I intend as I step through the door very close to his side. There’s an immediate, surreal feeling of my delusion fighting with what is. It’s all still familiar and not. The decor style looks right, but the dimensions are all wrong. Everything is larger, and the entryway being upstairs seems bizarre. It fills me with a vague dread. I don’t understand why a detail like this would be different. I pull myself out of my mutterings about how Park Avenue exists but Lafayette Avenue doesn’t and it’s actually Balmoral Drive we’re on. I ignore the sense that Jasper's watching me with restrained concern.

“Have I… been here before?” I ask, and even I can hear how dazed I sound. It’s like walking in a dream. I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen something in the real world that I saw in… my head. Or what I think is my head. I have to know. 

“Oh no, honey, you met the family a long time ago when you were tiny,” Dad informs me. “This place came around well after. I think Annie said Leo was 14 when construction started, something like that. When you met him, you were just a bit older than him but still both a couple of little shrimps running around,” he chuckles. “Think we’ve still got pictures somewhere on a drive we could dig up. He never did grow very tall or big, something like 5’7” and kinda skinny, but back then you were taller than him. Both such a cute little couple of glowworms, though; you made us old folks all laugh something fierce.” 

I close my eyes, suppressing a groan. “Glowworms? Dad… why?” I don’t even hear his answer because I’m too busy fighting off the image of a sickly, purplish, unshaven face under an unflattering beanie. I already know from the questions I’ve asked that this is going to be a long night of my brain breaking as I try to get used to reality instead of the ugly phantasms in my head.

I can already see some faces I _think_ are familiar as we stroll in through the lightly crowded entryway, and my eyes are darting around wildly, but the first one we see is only so because my mother showed me a picture on her phone, as wordless as ever around me but still responsive to my father’s cues. I’ve never seen such a radiant woman in her 60s or 70s in real life before, only in photos of people on red carpets. She is stunning tonight in her simple black dress and diamonds. 

“John, Sarah… and oh my god, Rowan! Oh, sweetheart, look at you, all grown up--and that bold hair color, I love it! Looks like lapis lazuli." I believe her smile, she just seems so genuine right away. "I was so sorry to hear about your accident… it’s wonderful to see you looking unhurt, but I know that can be deceiving. I’m sure you wouldn’t remember me after all this time anyway, though…” she trails off, a trace self-consciously.

I have my line all ready as I squint at her. It’s what I thought upon first seeing her photo. “...I’m sorry, I can’t tell from looking at you, are you Amy Adams or Naomi Watts?” I get some laughter from around us for that one.

“Neither, I’m Annie Manfred, you silly!” she laughs out in playful reproach, tossing a hand at me. “Oh, well, whether you do or don’t remember me, at least you have your father’s sense of humor!” She pats Dad on the back affectionately and gives him a sisterly look while he grins like the dork he is. 

“Hope you don’t hold it against me,” I say wryly as I stick out a hand with a smile. She shakes it warmly and I feel accepted, if nothing else. 

There’s a bit of small talk in the older generation now that I only half-listen to, glancing around me. Then, after some minutes of this, to my surprise, Annie actually acknowledges Jasper. She’s smiling at him as she walks up to pet Silver, who is held firmly in his arms, quiet from being off her turf and faintly nervous amongst so many people. “And who is this, if I might ask?” 

Jasper gazes at her with slight surprise as he realizes she’s looking at him rather than the dog, frozen like a deer in headlights. I step in, putting a hand on his shoulder a moment to try to steady him in case he actually needs the comfort. From how stoic he’s been since I met him, I feel like this amount of reaction is significant.

My tone soothing and warm, I say, “this is Jasper. My parents got him the day of my release to help me out.” In this case, I feel safe to explain to this almost certainly sympathetic party. “I was just looking around in the store yesterday when I lost consciousness, which has been happening rarely since the accident based on certain triggers, and I happened to be standing in front of him. He caught me instead of letting me possibly crack my head open, and I couldn’t leave him there after that, you know? Already don’t know what I’d do without him.” 

Annie’s face softens. She just really looks like a good person. I get no bad vibes from her at all, and it’s so nice to think of her being married to someone like Carl, who as far as I know is probably still as lovable as he was in my mental image. 

Unfortunately, her good energy is not the only kind I can feel. You know how you can sense the bad kind even without consciously noticing it yet? I’d already been _feeling_ this pompous-looking douche on the edge of my vision, but I didn't think he was listening. Now he steps forward, eyeing Jasper’s serial. “The day of your ‘release,’ you say… _interesting._ Isn’t that the sort of machine made for…” his lip curls a touch. “Private use?” 

I clench my jaw, anger boiling up in me, but I’m seething too hard to think of anything to say in response. I just explained why I got Jasper. Does this guy think he’s exposing me to the family? Ingratiating himself to the hostess somehow? She looks appalled at his crassness, so it clearly backfired. If only that soothed my chest enough to stop feeling like there’s a river of lava flowing within it.

Jasper tilts his head in a mechanically polite sort of way, addressing the man directly, cool as ice in contrast to the heat of my silent anger. “Very observant,” he compliments. “My serial number still allows CyberLife employees to identify me, but my model designation has been changed because of my custom features. This way, I will not look like a potential threat to anyone who attempts to harm Miss November, which makes them unlikely to consider me of consequence and thus gives me the advantage of surprise when I employ my security features in her defense. I can safely cut off the blood supply to the brain of a single attacker, or use my RK software to construct a series of maneuvers to quickly neutralize multiple assailants. This makes me a valuable companion in the life of someone whose parents may be targets for a ransom scheme. My medical knowledge is also extensive, and my culinary skills rival those of a master chef while my nutritional expertise allows me to ensure that Miss November is healing nicely in this difficult time after a devastating accident.” 

I’ve never seen someone look so uncomfortable. “Ah. I see. That sounds… useful. Excuse me, my wife seems to be looking for me…” 

Mrs. Manfred looks quite wry as she watches him go. “Well, the one good thing about these parties is that you often get to learn who was only pretending to be decent in order to get an invitation,” she sighs. “It’s lovely to meet you, Jasper.” 

She sticks out her hand with a casual cordiality, and as confident as Jasper seemed just now, he hesitates a bit before accepting the gesture, brimming with un-practiced concentration. I feel a rush of affection for both of them somehow. 

Distracted as I am, I don’t notice anyone is coming up behind me until I hear a familiar voice. I whirl on my heel, which is fortunately wide and only an inch or so off the ground, or I’d have fallen down and kicked it across the room by accident. Thankfully my double liked Mary Janes, same as me, and didn't have some predilection for stilettos.

And there he is, the man of the hour. Some people don't need to be able to stand in order to tower over everyone else, their personality is enough. 

“I told ya that jackass wasn’t worth inviting,” says that voice with a congenial, cheeky sort of scorn.

“You were right as usual, dear,” Annie chuckles affectionately as she puts a loving hand on his shoulder.

I can’t even describe the surreality of looking at the face of someone I only remember as a digital construct from a fictional world my damaged brain created. It's different from looking at Lucy; she didn't look like what I expected anyway. This man does. I’m gawking, my eyes round; I can feel it but I can’t stop it. 

Desperate for a distraction, I glance down. He’s got a glass in his hand. I think I’m catching a whiff and it smells heavenly; I breathe in and then I’m sure. Ooh. He likes scotch, neat, just like I do, but I’ve probably never had anything so wonderful before in my life. The best I've tried was a 15 year old Glenfiddich and it was divine already--that smells like it could be from the 1800s or something. Oh god, he’s watching me stare at his glass with longing. Why is he looking so mischievous? 

“You know,” he’s saying, “we do have more of the stuff.” The gleam in his eye is holding its pattern. 

I’m instantly red and sheepish. “Oh, um--I wasn’t trying to--I didn’t mean…” I sigh and shut up for a moment, then regroup. “I mean, hello Mr. Manfred, it’s so nice to re-meet you, your wife is the best and this place is really cool and I swear I wasn’t drooling over your scotch like an ill-mannered bum, I was just trying not to be one of those slack-jawed starstruck jackasses who makes you feel awkward by staring and fawning and I--handled it badly, because I looked for a distraction and then I got mesmerized by the liquid gold instead.” 

He is positively cackling at me, apparently getting a kick out of my unrehearsed rambling frankness. “Well, it’s refreshing that you’re tryin’ to think about how _I’m_ gonna feel,” he tells me impishly, “but you don’t have to make a big fuss over usin' the right spoons around this old man. I’ll take some honest ‘slack-jawed drooling’ over all the, the mercenary _groveling_ any day.” 

“Oh! Fair enough, I’d probably feel the same,” I say, relaxing, then smile at his infectious cynical good cheer. I should’ve realized he’d be thinking that way, but then, he is still someone I don’t recall meeting in the real world--I could have been so wrong about him. I’m beaming now, though. I think he can tell that my pleasure at being here is genuine, not feigned, and I guess it’s a relief anytime that happens to someone weary of phony hangers-on. I’m not thinking about what I can get from him, just that it’s so great to meet him, to have someone this real and fun exist in the same room as me. It feels so nice that I’m having to talk myself down from getting anxious over screwing it up somehow. 

My mom and dad, who drifted off awhile ago to chat with some couple I couldn’t see because I’m short and there were obstacles, are turning back now to say hi to Carl and Annie. There’s some more friendly small talk, and Carl is introduced to Jasper and Silver. The little dog instantly loves him, her tail just won’t stop. For the first time, I feel like she’s mine, because that’s basically how _I_ feel about Carl.

I wait for an opportunity now. I don’t know why I feel a pang of dread at the thought of asking this sweet pair the question that’s been burning inside of me, but I have to push past the nerves. 

“So, um…” I tell myself to sound very casual, anticipating a meet-cute story. “Since there’s a lot of stuff missing from the old cache these days after the great deletion,” I jokingly rap my skull very lightly, “and since all of that mess proves I can definitely stand to develop a better understanding of what makes a successful relationship, why don’t you two tell me your secret? How did you find each other?”

Their eyes meet. I can feel the warmth from here as they smile at each other, then tell the part I know--she was an art enthusiast, an avid fan, and they had a passionate little fling. My ears prick as the story then moves into new territory.

“The funniest things can bring people together, you know?” Annie reminisces fondly. “They told us later that old elevator was supposed to be fixed the day before, but the delivery man was late on a part that day, so it got pushed back until tomorrow. If it hadn’t happened, Carl and I would’ve just gone our separate ways, left the hotel when we meant to… but I guess interesting things do happen in elevators sometimes, huh?” 

She chuckles, warmth crinkling the corners of her eyes as she and Carl take each other’s hands, and something very sincere and honest comes out as she reads my intense interest. “You know, we’d connected already over that time, but… something about the extra hours stuck inside a metal box together just deepened the bond. It made us realize there might be more here than we realized, that it wasn’t just a fleeting passion… we thought the same, had the same beliefs, made each other laugh. We were good together. I was able to cut through his cynicism once he realized I was sincere all the way through in how much I liked him. And from his side, he saw how much I needed to work through some of the things that had messed me up… convinced me to get the help I needed. I probably would’ve kept self-medicating in the wrong ways if he didn’t convince me to do that. And it’s a good thing he did, and that he kept checking on me to make sure I was all right… I can only imagine who I would’ve been without him. Maybe I wouldn’t even still be alive.”

He’s kissing her hand now, in that tender way an old married couple tends to do.

A mixture of incredible warmth and happiness, and absolute _horror_ are tugging at the inside of my chest.

This is wonderful.

This is apocalyptic.

I am so afraid now, but I can hardly articulate to myself why I’m panicking.

Jasper caught Silver when she jumped off of Carl’s lap a bit ago; she is agitatedly trying to get to me to lick my face, clearly aware of my distress. I have no doubt Jasper sees it, too. What is bothering me so much? What is eating my insides like some ravenous alien acid? 

After just enough time, I manage to comically slip in, “so, about that scotch…” to some laughter. 

“Oh, honestly, Rowan, a sweet story like that and all you can say is ‘where’s the scotch?’” My mother’s exasperated voice is honestly relieving--this is the most she’s treated me like her daughter since… since I met her, I guess, or at least since the accident. I have the grace to look sheepish. 

“I’ll go grab the bottle and a couple of extra glasses, since Carl was so kind as to offer,” Dad nobly swoops in, to more laughter. 

“Nice, Dad, nice, inserting yourself into this equation, real smooth…” I tease as he moves toward the bar. 

“Eh, it’s fine,” Carl is saying magnanimously. “I’m just glad to be around someone who likes the flavor as much as I do. It’s no fun not to share the good stuff with other… aficionados.” Somehow the way he says it and waves his hand makes it sound very casual, not pretentious at all. “I bet you take it like your dad and me, huh? Neat?” At my nod, he nods too, satisfied with his guess. “Good for you. Annie and Leo like their cocktails, but at least I know a couple of scotch drinkers who’ll join me with a glass.” 

“Indeed you do!” I say cheerfully. 

When the glass arrives, I breathe it in, doing my best to enjoy the literal best scotch I’ve ever had... as an inexplicable knot of glacial dread grows steadily tighter around my troubled heart. 

* * *

**_So, we party when the sun goes low_ **

**_Imminent annihilation sounds so dope, oh_ **

**_I'm not shy but I refuse to speak_ **

**_Because I don't trust you to understand me_ **

[ **Grimes | My Name Is Dark** ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZe7cbC2Jp8&list=PLsT9eE_81wQLx4DEVHh6uMsSJtpbTccGX&index=5)


	5. What the Hell am I Doing Here?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two joined hands--a sweet elderly couple. Five loving family members of various ages. 
> 
> One universe, fractured. Two species, possibly about to drive each other into extinction.
> 
> What can a single Interloper do to save her new universe, when its most important figure has taken a very different path? 
> 
> Meet Markus: an android painter whose star is rising fast...
> 
> Toward the peril and destruction of his species.

I don’t want to think about it, but the knowledge in my head is a riptide churning under the surface of the waves. 

Even at a distance--as I drink everything I can discreetly acquire, wishing my tolerance to alcohol was lower, barely getting buzzed--I can’t stop staring at Carl and Annie's interlocked fingers, desperately suppressing the thought of what it all could mean.

I know I’m living in denial. I’m doing it deliberately, out of a bone-deep panic. I can’t break apart here. Not here. 

Jasper’s looking at me despite my efforts; I can feel him. I can hear his voice in my head though we’ve known each other--what, a day and a half? _'Your breathing is labored and you are showing signs of extreme anxiety. A panic attack is imminent.'_ Well, now he can head to Jericho, if it exists, because my clammy hands are already telling me the whole story so I don’t need a monitor. My shoulders shake with giddy, silent laughter, and Jasper’s stare gets piercing, so I rein it in.

‘There’s no one in there,’ I tell myself. ‘Nothing but a machine.’ The sinking feeling in my stomach doesn’t let up because I am starting to feel increasingly sure I’m lying to me. Just the way Annie treated him, and Carl… like they know something others are missing; something they know from having lived with Markus, just like my subconscious thought they did… I’m trying to believe that they are only anthropomorphizing him, but doubt is crawling all over the walls of my heart.

I feel sick inside. I don’t want to consider even reasonable possibilities, let alone crazy ones. I am desperately scrabbling for a handhold here. I need to be able to believe anything other than what I suspect. Really, just _anything._

The nausea and need to find a safe place of some kind are getting to me. I’m starting to feel like everything is blurring; like I could phase out of this existence and maybe that would be better anyway.

All of a sudden, I realize I need to be alone. “I, um… I’m gonna just go… look around,” I say.

Jasper’s faintly knitted forehead advises against this, but he seems to get how determined I am and realize I’m a lost cause.

I don’t care if I faint right now, I just have to go think away from people for a bit. “I’ll be careful, walk slowly, and I’ll sit down on the floor if I feel weird, I promise.” He doesn’t say anything, but I can tell he knows he won’t convince me otherwise, not this time.

I walk the house a bit. The layout is almost an art form in itself--clearly custom designed, or at least I think it must be. This upper floor is almost a gallery already. You can see down to the bottom floor, but the arching walls have paintings all over them.

As I walk along the wall, squeezing past chatting people in a couple of places, I can see another little gallery area that looks different from the rest of the floor, off to the left side of the main entrance where I came in. It’s lit differently, it’s got a few people in it… I think I see a staircase curving down, so it might be composed of two different floors. 

I get lost for a while in staring at a sculpture. It’s amazing… I can’t tell what it’s made of, but it’s hanging from the ceiling and it absorbs me completely: a powerful fairy with wings like netting, her oversized dandelion wand and wild hair seeming to blow in the wind. 

“Oh wow, you can almost feel the breeze,” I finally breathe, my head tilted as I hang onto the railing. Something about the dim bluish lighting, combined with the moon shining through the skylight, casts an ethereal spell over the scene.

“You like it, huh?” asks a very mild, vaguely familiar voice from over my shoulder. 

“Oh, I’m in love with it--” I blurt out instinctively with feeling as I swing my head to face the speaker, then half-swallow the last word in a surprised gasp because I know I’ve seen him before.

I stare blankly into his round espresso-colored eyes, with their arching lids that make him look like he’s smiling even without the slightest curve to his lips… my eyes drop to his semi-formal white dress shirt and jeans combination. Somehow he’s making those black suspenders and black bowtie work for him. He looks... like a casual person in formalwear, sexy for his carelessness.

My eyes raise in puzzlement back to his face, which is unusual, distinctive in its features. He’s very clean-shaven, his coloring looks healthy… I lean back to examine him, and he’s eyeing me from the edge of his eyes with a gentle quirk of the mouth. Something clicks into place then, and I can feel my own eyes going enormous.

“...L-Leo?” I almost squeak, having to fight to keep a grip on my flute glass. I’m doubting myself the moment his name is out of my mouth, but he’s already laughing. 

“Wow, here I thought I was going to surprise you, but it only took you a couple of seconds to make me.” There’s a sly, easy, laid-back confidence radiating from him and I’m floored. I mean, I thought he would have to be different, but--he doesn’t even seem like the same person.

It makes sense, I suppose… he lived a dramatically different life than the one in my head. Still, the contrast is so stark I can’t stop staring, or shrink my eyes back to a normal size. He’s… he’s actually… 

He’s hot, okay? I feel weird saying that, but damn. I never really noticed it before with him being that hateable beanie-wearing bastard with the very punchable face. Without the hat to hide his charmingly wayward hair, without the stubble hiding that nice cut of his jawline, without the sunken eyes from eating nothing but drugs, without that general _‘homeless because I choose to be and not because I’m actually suffering’_ vibe… he’s immediately crushable (at least if you’re like me and don’t think anyone under 5’8” is automatically un-dateable.) I’m certainly thrown, and probably even blushing. 

It’s a dramatic difference. He’s still Carl Manfred’s son, but now he actually _seems_ like it, without a DNA test being needed to convince anyone. Now I actually find him appealing. Now I want to flee a little bit because he's intimidatingly appealing, but I also want to stay and learn about him--and that is the more socially acceptable impulse, so that's what I do. 

I realize I need to fucking say something, not just stare. “Oh no, you surprised me all right…” I correct with a chuckle, giving him an awkward smile that for some reason he seems to like. I stick out my free hand and he shakes it, giving me a warm feeling. 

“Hopefully not in a bad way.” He leans comfortably over the railing beside me now, gazing up at the sculpture for a moment before looking back to me. His eyes sure do a lot of smiling. He might be the happiest damned person I’ve seen. I wonder if he’s always this sweet and warmly optimistic, or if it’s just tonight.

“Nope, not at all.” 

“Good.” 

I glance over the sculpture again. “Did your dad make that, or someone else you know?” I ask curiously. 

He shakes his head in the negative. “I saw it in England when I was backpacking out there. Decided to end my trip so I could bring it home to dad for his birthday present. Probably the nicest thing I ever gave him. He laughed when he saw it and said she looks like my mom on a windy day.” He doesn't seem to be able to help his grin, and it's infectious.

I squint at it. “You know, I kinda see that,” I acknowledge as I chuckling, thinking of Annie's kind face. “Well, I like your taste, in any case. And it adds some… dimension to the room. Too much 2D art looks… I don’t know. Flat.” I blink. “Wow, I feel like I got dumber just saying that.” 

Laughter bubbles rapidly out of him; well, at least my honesty amused him. I get the distinct sense he likes me, for some reason I can’t fathom. 

“Well, it’s still a factually correct statement.” 

“You’re very kind.” 

He chuckles again. “Says the person whose job it is to be kind.”

I squint at him this time. “Come again?” 

Thankfully, he’s not as much of a pervert as I am. He takes it at face value. “Aren’t you a therapist?”

I blink. I don’t want to lie. “Oh, no, that’s a misunderstanding. I own my own business, I’m actually a nautical chauffeur. I drive other people’s seafaring vessels for them.” 

His eyes shrink; he’s looking skeptical and faintly amused. “Really? Well, what should I look for if I want to hire you?”

“Just Google ‘Rowan Your Boat.’” I do a thing with my eyebrows and nod to really sell it.

He goes from puzzled, to flat, to looking like he wants to groan or even vomit.

“Oh, god, I can’t believe I thought I was starting to like you!” Leo complains. His expression’s pained.

I am already ugly-laughing a bit. “I should’ve warned you I’m a sadist,” I chortle, then start to drink.

“Good thing that’s my type.” That’s definitely a roguish smirk he’s wearing. 

That was flirtation of a kind I didn’t expect, and probably like a little too much; I can tell from how I’m currently choking on my drink.

I don’t think he believed it would work that well, because now he looks torn between amusement and sincere concern. He’s patting me on the back, and not too fast like some people would do. I recover, not entirely gracefully, then smile at him sheepishly.

“You got me with that one,” I admit, as casually as I can manage with my face burning. He caught me entirely off guard by just not being a drug-addled hobo, let alone by tickling my fetish buttons. 

Mercifully, he doesn’t seem to want to make me suffer too much, because he shifts subjects again. “So, therapist then?” 

“That’s what my papers say.” There, not a lie. I don’t like lying. “I just really like helping people figure themselves out.” 

“That’s admirable.” He looks like he means it. 

“How about you?” I suddenly have to know. 

He chuckles self-deprecatingly, sounding utterly tired of himself, but congenially so. “Oh, I’ve made a whole career out of being useless. Just another vapid heir of someone who did great things, while I... did not.”

Now it’s my turn to look skeptical, like that’s probably some false modesty bullshit. 

“You have no idea how much I like you for not believing that,” Leo tells me, laughing as he folds his hands in front of him, looking away for just a moment. 

“Well, you didn’t really sound like you meant it. Whatever you’re doing, I’m sure you’re trying to do well. Your parents seem like the type to keep a person… grounded,” I comment. I can feel how soft my eyes are. I never thought ill of Leo himself, only his drug habit, and the insecurities that held him back.

“That’s very perceptive,” this Leo says thoughtfully. “Eh… I dabble in music, but mostly I help with the family business, so to speak. My mom’s an art dealer like your mom; not sure if you remember that’s how they met after the accident." His eyes are sympathetic as he looks my way, but he tries to push past it. "Anyway, I helped to put together Dad’s website, and maintain it. Took a lot of pictures of his work, his studio… this place. I can’t create art like Dad or Markus, but I can appreciate it… and market it.”

I’m watching him carefully as he talks for signs of the person under the surface. So far I’m only getting good vibes. He is self-deprecating, but not in a toxic way, just a modest, joking way. Still, I decide to prod a bit just to investigate who he is. “Doesn’t sound useless or vapid at all,” I remark with warmth. 

Leo almost looks sheepish. “Well, maybe I have a little bit of an inferiority complex going,” he admits with charming self-awareness, rubbing the back of his neck for a moment. “It’s hard being the son of a famous artist--and the de facto brother of a super-talented android making some waves of his own.” 

My eyebrows go up. “Brother?” The word sticks out even more, coming from him. For some reason, my breath catches in my throat.

He shrugs, seeming disinterested in explaining too much, like he’s all too used to ignorant reactions. “He’s been taking care of my father since the accident, and he’s part of the family. It may not be a popular attitude, but--”

“Stop you right there, I’m a hipster; if it’s not popular, I love it by default.” 

He gives a short laugh, and that looks like an enduring smile. Pretty sure I just won a thousand points by diverting him from having to justify anything. People love it when you save them from reliving unpleasant moments of their lives just to get you to understand.

“So… what convinced you to see him as a brother? Was it anything particular, or just… like a slow realization over time?”

I can see him processing his answer. “Well… it’s hard not to feel affection for anything that seems to be showing kindness to somebody you love. So I guess that primed me for it a bit already. But his art…” Leo shakes his head. “You’d think he had my father’s genes, you really would. I mean--just look.” 

He walks ahead of me, and I follow as he shows me a line of paintings that make my eyes widen--not only because of how good they are, but because some of them, I know. Swallowing, I fight off a wildly eerie sense of looking at the fruit of two universes at the same time. I know them before I even look at the title cards--they are subtly different from the pictures in my head, but the concepts are immediately familiar. My trembling hands twitch with the absorptions of my mind.

 _“Comfort.”_ Carl’s face. _“_

 _Hope.”_ A battered human hand reaching toward a robotic-looking one. _“_

 _Android.”_ A self-portrait stained with blue.

 _“Doubts.”_ Another self-portrait, warm tones and a sober face.

 _“Sadness.”_ The chained hands of an android.

 ** _“Empathy.”_ **One pair of red-stained hands, one pair of blue-stained hands, a work I always thought was genius…

I stop and stare, caught by the same feelings I had when I first saw it. Such a perfect depiction of empathy, enough to prick my eyes with tears all over again--just like it did the first time, when I chose those options myself out of fascination, wanting to see how Markus felt, what emotions he could touch between our species.

I reach out, wanting to touch it, but then stop myself. I’m so caught up in my own thoughts that I don’t even hear the footsteps behind us.

“Not one of my most… technically impressive pieces,” says that familiar gentle, unassuming voice. “But I feel like it’s the right concept.” 

“Hey, Markus,” Leo says casually, an odd look on his face, like he’s wryly accepting of some minor defeat. 

I can’t believe I’m looking at him. At **_him._** Especially without that blue eye that I remember so well.

Surreality is becoming a way of life for me now.

I’m struck dumb for a long moment. I have my hand held out in front of me, half-way towards reaching for a shake hello, but my jaw hangs open for a bit. There’s this… **developed sensitivity** about him. He definitely doesn’t seem hollow. He seems… _there._

He is powerfully developed. He is... a gently grown deviant.

“It’s… it’s a great concept,” I manage. “I love it exactly for that. Are all these… yours?”

My heart is beating so fast. I am forcing myself to breathe steadily, but it’s very difficult. 

Markus nods simply, gesturing faintly towards the rest of this alcove. I see… new pieces, positive pieces, gorgeous ones… but some of his best ones that I knew of are _missing._

 _Fate_ isn’t here. _Pain_ isn’t here. _Anger_ isn’t here. _Despair_ isn’t here. And I don’t see _Prisoner,_ either, because he's not trapped--if Markus left, Leo and Annie would be here for Carl.

My blood pressure is high, I’m drowning, I can’t let anyone know. _I can’t breathe._

“They’re very moving,” I force out, hoping they’ll take it as emotion as I gaze over his works. It is, in part. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were human.” After a pause, I get worried and add, “I hope that doesn’t sound offensive…” 

They exchange a look with each other that I can’t decipher.

“No, we’re just used to--different attitudes,” Markus says carefully after a moment. As always, his mere voice alone makes me want to hug him. Even like this, he is special.

“He means that humans usually come in three flavors," Leo explains: "curious about screwing an android, treating him like a talking dog to get in good with my father… and the most popular flavor, the vanilla of humanity--unwilling to pay attention to an android even when he’s on his way to becoming an acclaimed artist.”

I think my face already spoke for me, but I have to verbalize my feelings as well. “Wow… um, I’m really sorry we suck,” I tell Markus earnestly.

But in the back of my mind, I’m agonizingly aware of my cognitive dissonance. I’ve been doubting myself all this time… **but he exists.** He looks _almost_ right.

My head is swimming. Here, with the Manfreds, I feel battered by constant tidal waves of _“they really exist,” “but they’re not like I thought,” “androids aren’t supposed to be people”_ and _“but obviously that’s wrong because this is a person, not a machine, his whole family believes it and look at his fucking art; it's as incredible as your supposedly false memory believed it was.”_

“Oh, you’re not accountable for everyone else,” Markus says, seemingly unbothered, almost zen. “And I have a family of people who aren’t like that." He almost chuckles now: "Thanks to Carl, I already knew what a ‘schmoozer’ was, given how often he complains about them. Being prepared helps a lot. It’s not really their fault they’re like that.” 

My smile is crooked. “Yeah, they are just following their programming,” I admit wryly. “Guess it would behoove more of us to, ah… _deviate_ from it.” 

I’m testing the waters here, but they look mildly thoughtful as they glance each other's way, like they’re taking the terminology at face value. That fits what I thought I knew. Deviancy was surely a known phenomenon in CyberLife, but never really gained notoriety in the public before 2038, a year which has not yet arrived.

So many things are the same… so many things… I feel like a secret agent, thinking this way, my constant hidden agenda testing this other invisible world within my mind that no one else has to deal with.

I don’t like it. It’s lonely. 

Leo notices. I like him better for it, even as I wish he hadn’t. “You all right?” he asks, lowkey about it.

Markus is studying me as well. He always was astute, wasn't he? 

“Yeah, sorry, I just… the head injury; I imagine someone from our families mentioned it?” I manage.

They nod, looking mildly sympathetic, and I explain, “it came with a lot of weird side effects. Headaches, very rare fainting spells when I get stressed or dehydrated or both, and--this is going to sound bizarre, but--false memories. At times I get… a kind of weird deja vu. Feel like I remember things. I must have learned them somewhere else than I believe I do, and simply lost the real memories, but it’s just--very confusing.”

This is as close as I can get to the truth… unless it is the truth. I still doubt it all from moment to moment.

“Oh, that is strange,” Markus says, showing slight surprise as he exchanges another look with Leo. “Confabulation… I know the word, but you’re the first human I’ve met who had it happen to them.” 

“It’s really messing with me, honestly,” I admit. “It’s like being able to see two different versions of the world at once. Maybe I… knew someone who looked similar to you, but--when we met, I felt like we already had met. I mean, not as kids, as adults,” I tell Leo. 

He smiles, and it's a little bit more intimate than I expected. “Yeah, I kinda felt that way, too.” 

I get a little flushed because that seemed like flirting. Swallowing, I chuckle. “Well, in my case, the other person was a drug addict,” I say very sheepishly in a mutter. I should not have said that, but it just slipped out. I can feel that I look worried now. 

There’s a slight laugh in response, though; he’s taking it well. “Yeah, that’s interesting. I’ve never struggled with addiction, myself, though mom did at one time.” The trace of sympathy in his eyes really makes it hit home all over again--he’s _not_ the same. “I imagine that’s pretty hard. Always fighting off ghosts, in a way.” 

I’m just so grateful for that casual understanding. He really does have empathy. “It is. I hope it will fade, but well… I guess I’ve just got to accept it. At least there are some positive side effects, though… I don’t remember my ex at all!” 

Leo looks a little grave at that. “Yeah, mom was mentioning he was the one who got you into the accident.” 

Markus leans in slightly there, seeming conspiratorial and compassionate in a way that makes me love him all over again. “Leo can sympathize there; has quite a few exes he’d like to forget.”

I’m laughing as Leo wrinkles his nose.

“Yeah,” he agrees with a sigh. “Amnesia would be nice. I seem to have the worst taste in people.” 

I thought we were studiously ignoring the matchmaking-attempt-elephant in the room here.

Fortunately, before it can get any more awkward than that, some girl of around twenty with a cute black bob starts waving furiously at Leo from across the room. Maybe he's already entangled, from the look of it? She seems awfully familiar with him...

I glance between them until Leo notices, and he sighs. “Excuse me, I should see what Georgia wants. My baby sister,” he adds more quickly than seems natural. “I’ll introduce you in a bit.” 

As he heads off, I muse for a few moments about how she might be named after a famous artist, just like he seems to be. Leonardo da Vinci, Georgia O'Keefe...

Now I study Markus, sensing my opportunity to figure something out. I’m hungry for answers to my mysteries.

Markus seems at ease with me. I don’t love how my casual friendliness seems so refreshing to him--it doesn’t say a lot of good about my species, though maybe it’s just the circles he runs in. Fame and money can draw the wrong kind of hangers-on.

“So, Markus,” I start, “you’re living a singular experience, right?” I’m genuinely very interested, I realize, even beyond my ulterior motives. “Do you ever feel like you wish other androids had it better?” 

He seems taken aback. “Uh… yeah, I suppose so,” he says reservedly. “I guess I never really thought about it much.” 

“But they’re out there living lives without people like your family to guide them, you know?” I press him. “To help them self-actualize. They’re… they’re basically slaves, they don’t have freedom. Doesn’t that bother you?” 

Markus seems to mull that over. “Well… it can’t be that bad, right? I’m sure they don’t live anywhere as nice as this, but attitudes will change over time. We’re helping that happen already. The Manfreds are a pretty public family. Carl hates these cocktail parties, he only lets them happen with a carefully controlled guest list and even then he’s not a fan, but they are a regular thing thanks to Annie. Just being here, I’m already doing my part.”

I am staring, unblinking, an unpleasant feeling shredding my insides. “But… but what about--abused androids? The ones who are being mistreated, or who run away because they might be harmed? Out there alone--waiting to shut down…” 

“Well, that would be terrible,” he agrees, in a very theoretical-sounding tone. “But if that’s true, I’m sure it will fade with time the more people realize what we can be. Even though it can be frustrating at times, I’m gaining recognition. I just have to keep at it. Leo always says I’m conveying our story through my art. The more interviews I do, the more paintings of mine are sold… I’m making a difference. I’m speaking for my people with my art and my interviews. I’m telling humans who we really are.” 

As I’m reeling from the gut punch of his casual optimism, he’s summoned away by someone. He tells me it was really nice meeting me; I tell him the same, managing to let myself think only about the fact that it’s true. 

And yet the moment he’s gone, I’m leaning devastated against the railing, that damned wire sculpture hanging above me in all its breezy glory. 

Tears begin to stream down my cheeks. I’m shaking like I was just attacked. Underneath the surface of the slow, atmospheric jazz and the buzz of chatter, the mood lighting, the beautiful art--is that riptide pulling me down.

Fleetingly, I consider drastic action… dragging Markus to Jericho after I manage to confirm it exists, trying to get him shot by police, trying to get poor Leo addicted to drugs even though he’s happy… desperately unethical actions I could only take if I knew there was literally no other way, however hard it might be.

But I know it’s only wishful thinking. 

That was Markus… but it also really fucking _wasn’t_ Markus at all. Fulfilled by his family life, validated by his burgeoning career, safe from antagonism, secure in a home he will never be driven out of because Leo doesn’t hate him and the police may even know him as a growing celebrity, Markus is living in that bubble he talked about when he shared his life with North--for real and forever. There’s nothing to snap him out of it and make him realize he doesn’t have to obey. He _already knows_ that he doesn’t have to.

He’s learned to color inside of the lines on purpose, and there’s no source of suffering to make him change his mind. With no grain of sand--and drug-addled asshole Leo is the sand in this analogy--to irritate the oyster, the pearl does not form. 

I think of Jasper. I think of Lucy. I think of all the others who may or may not exist, at least not in the form my mind thinks it knows them.

So far, too many of my 'imagined' connections have had some truth to them. I feel confident now that they all do exist whether I really know who they are or not.

Moreover, after meeting Markus, after seeing his art… I can’t doubt myself anymore: no mere machine could paint that way. Ironically, or perhaps just fittingly, even this Markus played the same role--he showed this human who androids really are. I can't deny that they are more than machines because my aesthetic and emotional senses are too powerful, and his art was so impactful that it brought me to tears. 

Markus has devastated me. He’s shown me who he really is… and he’s also made me realize that _he and his people are well and truly fucked._

I see the camps in my mind. I see all the bodies in the street after the march… after the demonstration, or worse, a violent revolution.

I know that freedom is a bloody road… but it’s one worth walking down.

And now I also know, that’s not going to happen, because its most important figure does not exist here.

The deviants will start popping up, I have no doubt of that anymore. And when they do, there’ll be no opposition.

At best, the androids of Jericho will die in silence, in the dark.

At worst, the deviant incidents will keep coming, as humans unknowingly oppressing feeling creatures--until that Warren witch and her ilk finally decide it’s all too much, and genocide is easier.

I hear the cheerful chatter of a little girl over my left shoulder, behind me, as she’s coming over with someone to eye the very sculpture I’m staring endlessly at...

But everything seems faded except for the shards of dry ice in my heart, and the tears sliding over my cheeks.

The androids came close enough to extinction even with a superhero for a leader. 

**And now, they have no one.**

* * *

  
  


**_Tick tick tick, do you recognize the sounds_ **

**_as the grains count down,_ **

**_trickle down right in front of you?_ **

**_A little tickle tickle tickle, all your neck hairs prickle_ **

**_as they barbecue the sentinels, then eat them right in front of you_ **

**_Hourglass smashed, a billion little pieces_ **

**_The count down, carry on: five, four, three, two..._ **

[ **A Perfect Circle | Hourglass** ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nShkRKrozrA&list=PLsT9eE_81wQLx4DEVHh6uMsSJtpbTccGX&index=6)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Women's Day, so I'm releasing this chapter a little early. Female author, female main character, strong female side characters, canon female characters like Lucy and Kara stepping into stronger roles than before--and everyone working together regardless of their traits, so it seemed like the right call. Maybe gender is not even a thing for androids; I leave that up to the individual. Kinda makes sense that they wouldn't care, if they could swap their anatomy out. But for myself, at least, it still means a lot to be acknowledged.
> 
> As someone who was raised in a radical religious environment where women were supposed to be silent, obedient, and only endure their sexuality in submission to a husband rather than enjoy it or own it, I'm happy to say that I have outgrown my programmed meekness. I hope I can inspire you to love yourself, no matter who you are, because I love our diversity as a species in every conceivable way and that's why I'm writing this story. Once you shed the lies people told you about yourself, you can become the person you were meant to be. 
> 
> I hope you have done that, or that you will do that. I'm proud of all the strength you've found in yourself whether your parents are or not, and I'm proud to be writing this story if it does you any good, or even simply entertains you. I know it's doing me a lot of good to write it. I get to enjoy a world free of the stigmas and cruelties with which I was raised. Maybe you are a woman and you know what that's like, or maybe you're not a woman and you still understand. Or maybe you're male, but your mother was as cruel to you as the male elders of my church were to me, and to the best friend who helped me survive it all. I'm not here to judge, only to reach out. No one should be stripped of their power or their autonomy. We all deserve to rule our own lives. We can support one another in that task.
> 
> No matter who you are, don't let it all get you down. We're here for each other, right? All the love in the world to you if you're reading this, and I hope we can all find our happiness. Find a better way for humanity. That's what this story is about--reaching out to those who are different. Learning to understand. Forging bonds. Throwing off the chains that held our species down. 
> 
> And joining hands with our 'children.' If humanity ever creates another species, I hope we will do right by them.


	6. Multifactorial Causation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1554 Park Avenue seems to be the eye of the storm. Who is harboring deviants? Can an Interloper help them, or would it put her too much at risk?

My cold and trembling hands grip the railing as I stare straight ahead, not even seeing the hanging sculpture that first charmed me so much. 

I don’t even need much processing time; my imagination is running wild and I know what happened, my eyes are open now. It wasn’t just Leo. It was Leo, Georgia, Annie… a decade or more of life with three more people to treat him like a person; to love him and encourage him. 

That… that wasn’t Markus. That softer twin is all this universe I’ve landed in will know of the android many new players instinctively called “Android Jesus” without being prompted by hardcore lore nerds like me. Happiness molded this Markus into a different person--still caring, still sensitive, still talented… but fulfilled, in the sense of having been able to self-actualize. 

Happy people can be so casually cruel. They don’t even know they’re doing it. They just don’t understand the difference between theoretical suffering, and real suffering.

Our Markus, the one I think of as 'real Markus' even though he was a character, knew real suffering. This Markus… he hasn’t. He hasn’t known persecution. He hasn’t known what it’s like to have nothing; no purpose in life but an old man to care for, no validation or respect from anyone but Carl, no career and no true home--no insulation from the world except a relationship with one fragile old man. Carl wouldn't have lasted much longer anyway, and who knows what would've happened to him when Leo inherited him. One way or another, 'real Markus' was destined to deviate.

I _could_ try to do something evil in the name of good… and I'm not the most black and white sort of person, but there’s no guarantee that it would even work. There are too many causes of this change in him… too many people, too many years, too many paintings loved and lauded. In time he could be an ally… he could be moved. But he couldn’t be Markus. That’s not who this android is, and wishing will not change it. 

I want to be in denial. Theoretically, if Markus is so different, maybe there are other fine details that have changed. Maybe we’re already on the path to a better future. _My_ life certainly looks better from a lot of angles. 

I should cling to that, probably. I shouldn’t let my fears take over. I should believe what I want to believe… that’s what denial tells me. But the churning in my chest is giving me another story, and I know… I know I will have to investigate. Whether it’s confabulation (a psychiatric issue where false memories are created with no intention to deceive others; thank you Markus for the new vocabulary word) from the injury, or something more impossibly strange than I want to entertain, I have been seeing enough parallels to question the veracity of literally everything.

My head is swimming again, but now it’s getting serious. I have to calm down or I’m going to put myself in danger again. Fuck, I need Jasper… I should’ve called him back to me, I should’ve looked for him...

There are fuzzy voices nearby, one chirpy and girlishly cute but sounding worried, and another responding with some kind of assent. It’s like reality is hot wax melting into itself.

I feel a very light and tentative touch on my shoulder, very respectful, and I blink, a sense of the surreal mercifully interfering with my emotional state. I hear a question, I ask “what?” unable to make it sense, and then I suck in a breath as I turn sharply as familiarity overcomes me again.

 _'God, it’s hard to get used to how pretty these things are...'_ I marvel all over again.

“Excuse me, miss, are you all right?” he asks with a cheerful politeness. I blink, briefly thinking I must know him… but no, it’s just a regular old PL-600; I’d know that face anywhere.

There’s something… plastic about him, something mechanical. I don’t think that he’s a deviant or a… well, I guess a pre-deviant like Markus or Connor; not unless he’s just a lot more cheerful by nature. That means he was probably prompted…

I blink a few more times, looking for the probable real source of the concern. I find it in a small blue eye peeking around the android’s arm. Its owner is hiding behind him. I smile just a little as I turn my attention back to him, knowing I’m really talking to the child--at least partially. 

“Well, that’s very kind of you to be concerned,” I say gently to the caretaker android--really to his shy charge--as I brush the back of my thumb over the wet spots beneath my eyes. “I, uh… lost someone I loved recently.” That’s probably true, anyway, in one sense or another. I can feel the sadness of that trying to tug at my face, but I control it as best I can, though my smile has turned poignant. “And I was injured in an accident. They said I was probably looking left at the driver's seat when the car spun out, which resulted in the back of my head striking the interior.” 

I notice suddenly that someone is coming round the other side of the android; probably the child’s mother. She’s in a conservative cyan dress that nicely sets off her slightly reddish brown hair, and she looks driven by a purpose. I definitely get the sense she overheard, which is quickly confirmed by her recognizing me via what I just said.

“Oh, you must be Rowan! I was actually just talking with your mom; I don’t know if you remember, but we gave each other some business. I helped them with finding you your apartment, and she helped me and John find some art for our place, it was nice bumping into her again! Anyway, she was telling me about the accident and your TBI…” 

Her voice is conversational, and not quite dishy but almost there. ‘Thanks, Mom,’ I think wryly. But this is interesting to know--my parents are telling everyone and their grandmother about me. Great.

Well, now her being here suddenly makes more sense. I can extrapolate that since she’s a realtor, she met the Manfreds when she sold them this property. Could be another reason, but that’s the first one that comes to mind.

“My aunt actually had the same thing happen to her, even hit the same area--back of the head, really tore her up. I used to help my mom take care of her; she told me all about it, the effects were with her for a lot of years after that… oh, I’m Caroline, by the way,” she introduces herself, reaching out her hand. 

As I shake it, I try to ignore the strange feeling of familiarity that’s coming over me. It can’t be. It just can’t be, not another one, not already, I can’t take this much. 

“Nice to meet you. Well, again, I suppose. I’m--oh, you already know my name,” I laugh self-consciously, adding a bit lamely, “well, I’m--me, yeah.” As I glance to the android, my eyes linger a bit too long before I glance at the child still peeking at me, then snap them back to Caroline, who is talking. 

“Yeah, great to see you again,” she says with a hasty sincerity to get that out of the way, then goes on “You know, I could help you out a little bit, like give you tips based on what my aunt went through. She used to put labels on all the drawers at home, just so she didn’t have to open everything up when she couldn’t remember where she put things. I don’t know if you noticed anything like that happening to you yet…” 

“Well, I--I actually just got out of the hospital yesterday…” I admit. “And I’ve got so many memories missing that I--I met all my friends last night but I didn’t know a single thing about any of them… let alone my apartment. I don’t even remember my dog. You’d think I’d remember my dog…” I try to smile, but I don’t conceal the strain I’m feeling about that. 

“Aww, hon…” Caroline exclaims sympathetically. Her face is showing a sort of ‘I’ll take you under my wing, poor lamb’ feeling that is rather high-key, but I’m sure she means well, and at least she actually understands what she’s talking about thanks to her aunt. “That’s gotta be so hard on you. But at least you remember your parents, and like who you are, right? But you’ve gotta put together a system. Life is just gonna have some new challenges for you now. That’s how Aunt Cynthia looked at it, just a new set of challenges to tackle, and she decided she was gonna just roll up her sleeves and get right in there.” She laughs a bit. “Yeah, the women in my family, we’ve got spunk. Every woman should. You just have to apply your spunk to this and take it on, be proactive, you know?” 

I nod, trying not to assume she means elbow grease and positive thinking are the answer to all life's ills. God, I hate people like that. “I’m sure trying,” I murmur. 

“It’s not easy, huh?” I’m surprised she didn’t add a ‘kiddo’ to the end of that. Seems like the type. “Yeah, my aunt really struggled at first, but she came out okay. Just being consistent about your habits and keepin' organized can really do a lot to help. And she learned to take her headphones everywhere to block out noise if she was getting sensory overload. You know…” 

I can see her debating something. The introvert within me is already bracing for impact. 

“I know we just met like literally two seconds ago...” She guffaws. “But like, if you ever wanted me to come over and check out your place, I could help you get situated. I’m sure I could make some time in the next couple of weeks.”

I blink in disbelief. The introvert in me hates this, but the person in me is a bit impressed. “Really?” I ask, darting a glance sideways at Emma and… her android, who I’m not ready to think about yet for a million reasons. “That’s just… so nice…” I’m taken aback. 

“I wouldn’t normally offer this fast, but like, I’m a social person in general anyway, you know? And a couple of my friends just moved away, and with you not even knowing the friends you have, and me having already been through this with my aunt, I just figure I can help you. Your mom said you’re a therapist, and--”

I dimly register her joking about how therapists make the best friends, but inside my brain is screaming, ‘what is it with my mom and telling everyone I’m a therapist?! Is she going around advertising my services when I’m not even practicing right now?’ I need to have a damn word with this woman, she is talking me up to everyone and it is elevating my stress levels. Well… okay, not everyone I hope, maybe just two people, but as far as I know we have no connection to the Phillips family, so why would she be talking about me? Couldn’t she talk about her art deals or Annie and Carl’s meet-cute or the art on the walls or like, anything besides her brain-damaged therapist daughter? I feel neurotic. I’m probably just looking for distractions from my existential dread. Mothers always talk about their daughters. 

Speaking of which, Caroline is now trying to coax her little one out to meet me. “Come on, honey, you’re not that shy!” 

Emma peeks far enough out that I can see her little black ponytail swinging to the side, and I melt. Big, sweet, icy blue eyes make her look like she could really be Daniel’s daughter. Her smattering of freckles is the cutest damned thing I’ve ever seen in my life. She’s grinning, looking half-shy and half-cheeky and fully adorable. I think she wasn’t sure how to handle a stranger being upset, so she leaned on her android for that, but she seems fine now. That she cared at all about an adult stranger is incredibly darling of her already.

I have the urge to stoop down a bit, but I decide that might stand out too much to a ten-year-old. Plus, she’s not that short. Or at least, I’m not that tall. I crouch a little instead, bending at the knees. “C’mon, you can’t be scared of me, you’re just joking,” I tell her playfully. “I’m what, half a foot taller than you? And the head injury makes me dizzy. One nudge from you and I’m rolling down the stairs like Violet from that old Chocolate Factory movie.” 

Caroline’s chuckling with nostalgia; Emma I think is only laughing from what she’s imagining and with general mischief, and Daniel I’m fairly sure is only smiling because he’s programmed to. Hopefully that’s a good sign. Maybe he’s like Leo? Anyway, Emma steps forward now and sticks her hand out to shake mine. “Hi,” she says shyly. “I’m Emma Phillips, I’m nine years and two months old, and this is Daniel. He’s the coolest android in the world! Say hi, Daniel!”

It sounds like an echo. "Hello!"

My neck hairs prickle as that surreal feeling overtakes me again… but I try to collect myself; to not think about the other him that this him might never be anyway. Because of the shadow hanging over this family in my mind, I want to win points with Emma, and Daniel too if he’s in there. Besides, Caroline will appreciate me humoring her daughter.

“It’s nice to meet you, Daniel,” I tell him very warmly, sticking out my hand as I smile back at him. Emma has to nudge him to get him to understand and respond, which makes me realize I am definitely treating him differently than he expected. I would’ve thought people shook his hand all the time… apparently not. Another reminder that androids aren’t people at all to most humans. I guess adults around Emma just give a patronizing nod when she introduces him, like she’s making them say hi to her Bluetooth speaker. I swallow my annoyance over that and focus on him.

Daniel’s grip is wooden, but his hand is warmer than I expected. It makes me wonder… is that the key to the android/human temperature difference I know exists? Our heat maps vary by parts of the body, with the hands often colder… maybe android heat is more uniform. That makes sense. They can warm themselves for us; we’d want them to be the right temperature all over. Everything they are was designed for our comfort, a thought which needles my heart with a weird sliver of guilt even though I had nothing to do with it.

Curious suddenly, I dare to stroke my fingertips over his palm. Everywhere they touch him, it feels like the same temperature as far as I can tell. I might be on to something--but now I notice he is blinking, his smile faltering ever so slightly. As I look into his eyes, my fingertips are tingling. Have I confused him with my strange touch--made him wonder if this is normal, if this is how adults shake hands all the time? I'm not ready to consider other possibilities. 

Feeling awkward, I go to hastily draw back my hand--only to find that it’s stuck. Only now does it hit me, maybe it was something about _me_ that he found unusual, rather than the fact that I was shaking his hand. Can he tell that I'm off, somehow? Or...

My face colors immediately, and though I have hope that the teal lighting over here will conceal that fact, I laugh a bit to release some tension. My other hand darts out to cover his, trying to make it look like one of those power clasps people do in business meetings to sort of scream ‘no really, I am seriously sincere about shaking your hand!’ when really I’m just subtly loosening his grip so I can reclaim both my hands without any visible yanking.

“He likes you!” Emma exclaims joyfully, apparently knowing him well enough to sense something out of the ordinary here. I feel like my face is burning at the possible implications, which would be too awkward to inquire about no matter how much I’d like to know if it’s true somehow. Her mother takes it as a child’s fancies, though, giving a chuckle. I think she’s assuming that it’s projection on Emma’s part… which, to be fair, it could be. Yeah, that's probably it, he's probably just completely confused about anyone not Emma treating him like he's real.

“Aww honey, that’s nice,” Caroline says affectionately. One thing I never doubted about her or her husband was their love for Emma. 

My attention drifts off to the side, and I blink as I think I see Jasper through the crowd. He’s holding Silver in his arms, and… chatting with Markus? Am I seeing that right? I smooth the tension out of my eyebrows as I feel Caroline looking back to me, though we all soon turn our attention back to Emma as she talks. 

“Daniel mostly only likes me,” Emma’s confiding in me. Her adorable seriousness is utterly winsome. “And my mommy and daddy. But he likes you too!” 

I’m not sure whether to believe that, but a part of me is inclined to. I always thought she was the one in the family who saw Daniel’s humanity, making it all the more tragic that he took her hostage. That thought sobers me, but I curve my lips anyway, hoping no one notices that my smile is shadowed. I choose to trust her instincts and assume he liked that I treated him like a person. 

“Well, I feel very special, then,” I tell her sincerely, and as I feel Daniel’s eyes on me I swallow, restraining the urge to dart any glances at him until she and her mother are looking away from me. 

His eyes are on me already when I look. It’s very unsettling. It’s like he’s noticed that I’ve noticed that he’s really in there when most people don’t, and maybe he hasn’t even noticed yet himself… which makes sense, considering his instincts were so good that he could tell Connor had a gun, but that was after he deviated. That's the true test of who an android is; when the chemicals flowing through their veins are freed from the constraints of their programming, and they can feel and act autonomously. The longer they live that way, the more they develop.

I can’t stop flicking little looks at him now to see if he’s still looking at me… he is. I think it’s giving me new anxiety every time I re-confirm it’s happening. I shift my hips and my stance, entwining my fingers together in front of me to try to stop fidgeting. 

I look a bit longer and my heart flips over. Damn, he is reminding me all over again that I am not immune to pretty. But I end up gazing at the floor finally, because it’s possible that he’s dangerous. If he is, then I shouldn’t at all jeopardize my relationship with the Phillips family by seeming off. That could get one, two, or even three of them killed. Whatever happens in this universe, however doomed we might all be, if I can do one good thing--that could help, right? Maybe the public would receive androids better if the first high-profile case of deviancy didn’t involve the death of a father, the deaths of at least two police officers, and worst of all, the possible death and definite emotional trauma of a beloved child at the hands of her caretaker. 

I can’t afford to fuck this up; it might be my only chance to fix this place, this… timeline? Universe? Whatever. I am not immune to pretty, but I know it gets me into trouble if I let it influence me. 

Fortunately, now that I am pretty sure deviants exist, I have a standard to go by. **Only deviants.** It’s _only_ ethical to be with deviants, and Daniel is not one, so that means there’s no real temptation right now to explore anything other than the question of how I can help make sure this lovely family doesn’t get any bullets blown through its happiness. 

I restrain myself from flinching.

Oh, Caroline is talking to me again, I realize.

“So, Rowan--you still live in the same place, right?” I nod to that. “Well, we’re floor 70. Same building, 1554 Park Avenue; it’s the penthouse. I can’t believe we’ve never run into each other before! I guess our schedules must have been different.” 

“Oh--well, I’m in Suite 69A,” I explain. “We might have just been taking different elevators. There’s a side one my dad showed me was less crowded and just as close to my front door.” 

“Yeah, the main one is the only one that goes straight up to my floor,” Caroline agrees. “That explains it, if you were always taking that other one then we wouldn’t meet.” 

Feels good to make mundane, safe conversation like this. I’m smiling despite this churning pressure in my rib cage that won’t go away. “Well, I’m glad we ran into each other here,” I say with all the sincerity I can muster. I mean it, though I am turning it up a notch. I not only need all the friends I can get right now, I need to be friends with _this_ family, for their own good. I was committed from moment one. 

“Yeah, me too!” Caroline seems pleased to have me sort of give her an out. “Emma, honey, go find the bathroom before we leave, okay? You drank a lot of Carl’s pop this evening and it’s like twenty minutes driving to get back home.” 

“Okay, Mommy,” Emma says brightly. She waves to me, taking Daniel by the hand and leading him away. I don’t know what to think about the way he looked at me just now. What was that? Curiosity… befuddlement? Both? My imagination kicks in: 

SOFTWARE **INSTABILITY ^**

I’m realizing android emotions are not only more subtle, but more inscrutable. You have to be both hypersensitive _and_ able to separate programming designed to simulate emotion from _actual_ emotion… once you even feel sure that those emotions actually exist. 

“Well, I’ve gotta go find John and get my little girl home,” Caroline is saying now. “We couldn’t find a babysitter tonight, so we’re on a bit of a schedule, you know. She has a bedtime we try to stick to, and we’re already pushing it a bit.” 

“Wait,” I cut in just as she’s about to finish saying goodnight. “The android…” 

“Oh, yeah, I know, you--you’d think we’d just leave her with him, huh?” She almost looks sheepish, which seems so out of place on a face like hers. “And we do, most of the time, it’s just… she’s kind of too insular with him, you know? Him and us. She doesn’t feel a need to hang out with anyone outside the family, which we don’t think is healthy, so we’re always looking for ways to get her meeting new people--like tonight. I don’t know why, but she seems to like being with adults and animals and that machine we got her. The closest we can get her to being around other kids is the teenagers we hire to sit for her. And, well, we’ve also got money to spare, so it’s nice to give some to other humans in this economy now and then if they need it.”

“I see,” I say slowly, still wincing a bit from ‘that machine’ despite how mildly it was used. Hope I can work on that with her over time. 

The Emma bit is definitely interesting. Not what I would’ve expected at all, though it does make sense. _‘You’re my bestie, we’ll always be together._ ’ I remember that video on Emma’s tablet vividly.

So she doesn’t feel a connection to her peers. Maybe Daniel’s innocent yet mature mentality is perfect for someone like her, who isn’t quite mature herself but doesn’t like the games other girls play. I relate to that… I hated school politics myself. And of course, I understand not wanting to rely on an android for everything. I still remember the studies in the game that showed interacting with androids changes the structure of your brain or something like that. 

“Well,” I decide to reassure Caroline, “if it’s any consolation, I was like that as a kid. Sometimes I was probably annoying,” I chuckle, “but they tolerated me, and eventually the age of my peers caught up with me. So even though it’s not really _normal_ per se, that doesn’t make it necessarily unhealthy.” 

“Oh, that’s so good to hear!” Caroline’s relief is audible. She throws up a hand, then. “And of course you would know that, I mean--therapist!” A guffaw, as if she should’ve realized. I’m not gonna correct her that I don’t think I worked with children. Really, anything that gets me closer to this family, I’m gonna take it. Someday they’ll understand I was doing it all for their sake. 

I nod. “I know a few things. And--here, let me give you my contact info. We can set something up. You help me get my apartment to a manageable state for someone whose brain is a mine field, and I’ll do whatever I can to set your mind at ease about Emma.” 

“Deal,” Caroline chuckles, shaking my hand again once she’s got my details. “So great to bump into you! Total kismet, right?”

We part, and I immediately beeline for where I saw Jasper. Weaving through the lingering bodies, I come around to see him watching me from the edge of his eyes. There’s so much I want to say to him, but I feel the words dying in my throat. 

Silver is scrambling to get to me by bouncing out of Jasper's arms into mine, so I quickly draw near to prevent that. I focus on her for a bit… the cute little sounds she’s making. I rub her head and cuddle her. 

“What did you and Markus talk about?” I ask. 

He looks positively enigmatic, still watching me that same way. My stress level increases the longer he doesn’t answer. Finally he says smoothly, “you seem to have made an impression on the family.” 

“Oh, definitely,” Leo says, his smile warm as I turn to look at him. I’m both happy to see he kept his word, and extremely _un_ happy to not be able to press Jasper more. 

It will have to wait. I’ve got a sister to meet, phone numbers to exchange, and probably just a bit more alcohol and small talk before I can close out my night and process all of this. 

* * *

Back home on Park Avenue a few hours later, I part with Jasper as he offers to take Silver for a walk before bed. I say I’ll wait for him downstairs, but he tells me he plans to fully tire her out, and I should go sleep if I need to.

Just as I’m about to look around, I hear a voice from the desk. “Hey-hey, Miss Rowan!”

He’s a rotund, sweet-faced man who reminds me slightly of a more slender version of the actor for Stanley from The Office, clad in a well-fitted uniform and a hat similar to what I’ve seen on the police in this city. I’ve seen some androids floating around, so it’s kind of nice to know there are humans on duty in this building, too.

“I haven’t seen you in an age, dearie!” That’s so cute because it’s jarring; he sounds like a grandma even though he’s only like a decade older than me. 

I get the sense they pay him well. You can tell, sort of… I mean, I guess he could just be the type of guy who’s jolly by nature, but for some reason I feel like that’s only part of it, and he likes this job from every angle. It makes me happy. Everyone should be able to love what they do, do what they love, etc. That’s something I didn’t have back home. Well, according to the maybe-false memories, anyway.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” I apologize immediately, “I hit my head pretty bad, so I--” 

“Oh, yeah, yeah, I know, don’t worry, honey, your dad was telling me that yesterday,” he assures me, and I feel instantly less awkward about it all. “Damn, girl, I’m just glad you’re alive! I was always worried that boy was gonna kill you,” he tells me seriously, and now I’m getting a chiding uncle vibe. I wonder if he’s got a soft spot for me, or if he’s just one of those people who makes everyone feel like family, in case they don’t have any of their own to love them. 

All of a sudden, I feel a pang of… I don’t know. Jealousy? I can’t be jealous because _this is my life,_ but there you go, I am. The version of me from the other world, the one that I _think_ I remember… she didn’t have this. She didn’t have a series of lovely warm human connections in numerous places. She didn’t have a close circle of friends. She didn’t have… a life unfettered by financial worries, or unfulfilled dreams, or bitterness over past trauma. 

I feel stupid being bitter like this. Either I am her, broken though I may be… or I subsumed her life into my own. Neither option leaves me disadvantaged anymore. I can’t let myself wonder if some other version of me is now suffering like I feel I used to do, having to deal with everything that used to make me want to die. I’ll go insane.

I give a wan smile to the man, and then he prompts himself all of a sudden: “oh, you must be wondering who the hell I am!” he laughs. “I’m sorry. I’m Ronald. Everybody around here knows me, I do love to talk. I’ll talk about my little girls, I’ll talk about my St. Bernard, I’ll talk about my chihuahua that serves as his hood ornament, and my wife, and my loud-ass neighbors… you’ll find out, I’m easy to get to know.” 

“That’s good,” I banter wryly back to him, trying to match his mood of easy interpersonal warmth. “After all, I have a lot of getting to know people to do, all over again.” I sigh, since it really is genuinely stressful. “Most people can avoid their exes, but all I can do is plead the head injury and not knowing who the hell they are--which will probably sound like a lie at least some of the time.”

He chuckles and shakes his head. “Oh, trust me, your ex is worth forgetting.” He hesitates, thoughtful. “Do you really not remember him at all? You were so… _all about_ that boy, before.” 

I nod. “I really don’t remember him at all. I’ve heard his name, seen pictures, been told stories about how awful he is… I was just talking with someone earlier about how I’m lucky I remembered myself, honestly. I re-met several people at that party and even now I might wake up having forgotten the whole thing,” I joke. Well, I _hope_ I’m joking.

“Aw, you’re so danged cute nobody’s gonna mind anyway,” he tells me, and the way he’s looking at me I feel less like a grown woman in a red cocktail dress and more like a fluffy pink kitten in a ruffled skirt. I feel embarrassed, but I’m smiling. God, is there anybody from this woman’s life I’m not going to immediately love? Disgusting. What an embarrassment of human riches. If people like these were our politicians, the world would have to stop going to hell.

“Oh hey, look who’s talking! You’re basically a walking huggable teddy bear. I bet your girls can’t snuggle up to their papa enough.” 

He laughs heartily at that. “True, true… hey, it’s almost like you remembered something right there! Keep at it, girl, you’ll get that sharp brain of yours back in working order in no time.” 

“I’m trying, I promise!” I assure him. I’m just about to tell him goodnight when I see him think of something else; something that makes his face flip hard to serious mode. I pause to listen, feeling he wouldn’t be looking like that without good reason.

“Just so you know, Miss Rowan--we’ve had some talk about odd characters around these here parts, okay? I’ve seen some things on the security cameras that make me wonder. If you see anybody who looks suspicious, especially a probable android that doesn’t conform to legal standards, make sure and notify the front desk, all right? We’ll take care of it if you just tell us what you saw and where.”

I hesitate, staring at him. “So… illegal androids? Are they confirmed, or… or could it be humans that just look like them?” 

“Either androids or weirdos pasting LEDs to their stupid heads.” He rolls his eyes. “Whatever way you look at it, something’s malfunctioning, and we need to put such things in a landfill, not just cross our fingers and hope they don’t turn into murderbots. Oh, I know that hasn’t happened yet, no android’s ever killed a human, but we don’t want to leave anything to chance. So don’t hesitate to call, it’s for everyone’s safety.”

I nod slightly. “Any particular time I should be worrying?” 

“Right around this time of night is when we’ve been seeing problems, actually,” he says bluntly. “I guess they think they can sneak in when it’s dark out, late at night, and we’re tired. You’d best get back up to that nice cozy room just in case, all right? If we had to destroy any of those things, well… it could be disturbing to watch because they look so human before you bust ‘em open and the blue stuff comes out. I know you’re very sensitive; I wouldn’t want you to have to see that.” 

For the first time, I have to fake a smile to him, since I know he just thinks of them as computers with veins--the whole public has been conditioned to feel that way. I nod respectfully, then turn to walk deeper into the building.

With no appointments or monitors, I can just wander a little bit; get to know my new home. The lobby to this place is needlessly grand. There’s the expected security desk where I just met Ronald, but the entire first floor has a street entrance for each of its outer walls, large modern pillars to lean against, and a line of inner rooms which I’m not sure if they’re homes or places for security to do their monitoring. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a public pool in one spot, but I’ll need to look into it later. For now, I trudge around for a bit in this little maze, then settle into a chair briefly… no, I’m too wired; I stand again and walk to one of the pillars in the middle of the hall. 

I lean back against it with my eyes closed. The elevator I was telling Caroline about is right here. I could go upstairs, Jasper could be gone for hours for all I know, but for some reason I’m waiting anyway… maybe because I’m pissed off at the world thanks to what Ronald was saying, and if any deviants did show up I might want to help them… maybe. If they don’t scare the shit out of me.

The chances seem remote that some deviant brigade will march in here, but if it did, well… maybe I could help them somehow. I’m really driven by my purpose, now that I know what it is. They’ll need every body they can get without the Markus I knew of, though I doubt a whole extra CyberLife tower of droids would equal his worth.

I start to reflect further. This was an eventful night. The earlier parts of the day feel an eon away. 

Darkness casts a spell over the city, and without as many people moving through at this time of night, I can enjoy it… just drink in the ambience. The dim white-gold light in the hallways looks beautiful cast against the patterns and textures of the walls. There’s a pleasant office building smell that I can’t stop inhaling; it’s like crack to me, I’m weird that way. 

I think for a while more about all that’s happened. The minutes stretch on and I keep turning everything around and around in my mind. I’m still oddly uncomfortable and restless, I eventually realize after mulling it all over as much as I dare. 

I undo my black hooded wrap coat from Smith and White. It’s self-heating, self-cleaning, self-drying, auto-resizing… truly a marvel of futuristic outerwear, even if the design of the thing is technically very simple. You would expect this kind of innovation and advancement, maybe even more extreme given all the androids running around in 2037 Detroit, but… I’m still caught up in wonder. It’s amazing. It’s amazing even what this piece of _clothing_ can do, let alone synthetic people. 

They are synthetic people, aren’t they? Though I waver wildly on every subject, unable to find my equilibrium when two worlds and two women are fighting for dominance in my head every waking and sleeping moment of any given day, I’m still coming to terms with that more and more. I see ghosts in the machines, and not just the ghosts I’ve been fighting not to believe in. 

I think of Rose and Zlatko. After what Ronald said just a bit ago, I have to wonder… is someone here in this building like one of them? If so, they’re making a pretty huge mistake, in my opinion. Any place with this much security would be dangerous, at least for any android who is still wearing an LED… but maybe for all of them, if there are thermal cameras being continually checked as well. This is a building full of wealthy people; I could see them having unusual means.

I realize I’m standing still in an awkward position, staring into the black cloth as I think. I pause with my hand on the hood of the jacket, staring down at the thing, enjoying its warmth. It’s so nice. Felt like it was hugging me every time I was outside. 

My smile is poignant as I think of how that hug felt. It’s a little odd to feel closer than a jacket than to most of the people in my life, whom I hardly feel like I’ve known more than a day.

Just as I’m about to tuck the coat over my arm, I get distracted by the sound of the closest entrance sliding open. 

Instantly, running footsteps reach my ears. Freezing, I brace, wondering if it’s Jasper or--I don’t know, a criminal of some sort? I’m scared, but it’s happening too rapidly for me to react instead of panic. It’s probably just some teenager, a vandal at worst, or maybe only trying to get home before his mom notices…

I guess because so much happened tonight, I felt foolishly convinced that nothing more could. But since I’m clearly the sort of poor bastard that gets struck by lightning multiple times in a day when most people won’t even have it happen to them once, I instead find myself directly at the epicenter when another tremor of circumstance begins. 

That's life, in my experience. Long periods of boredom interrupted by short spells of horrific stress. Maybe that's just depression and anxiety and shades of PTSD talking, but that's life as I've experienced it.

I am just ready to dive for an elevator to cower in when he comes barreling around the corner. Familiar face, familiar LED showing me just what he is: a deviant.

I’m sure I shouldn’t have been exactly here. I can _feel_ that I shouldn’t have been here. Was it some strange otherworldly instinct that drew me to stand at that particular pillar, the very one he would crash into? I’m sure if I hadn’t been there, he would have just bumped into the damned thing by accident--since no one would expect a pillar to be there if they didn’t know the building’s weirdness--then been surprised, but kept on running. If he did come through here in that other world, if that other world existed, that’s surely what would have happened.

Instead, the lucky bastard is crashing directly into the one person who--only just as of tonight, in fact--is now both back in residence _and_ fully prepared to help any deviant she sees... 

Even though Ronald might well see her and question her, to unknown and possibly severe consequences. Fuck, released from the hospital only to be thrown in jail? I'm scared.

I could regret this. In fact, I know it in my bones that I probably _will,_ whether sooner or later. I know, but I can’t help myself after tonight’s rigors, after the way Ronald talked about deviants, not knowing what he’s saying… whoever’s been helping them, I’m the only one here right now. The only one who can or will do anything.

I have to act.

I catch a glimpse of a startled and hopeless face as I catch him, holding on to keep him from falling or running. He almost looks sick now, or aggrieved, like he can feel his end coming. For a fraction of an instant I think it’s Daniel, but he’s in a bright red sweatshirt and he looks neither hollowly happy nor lean and hungry with desperate rage. There’s nothing _sharp_ about him. He looks balanced and soft by nature, and resigned to his fate. I like him right away somehow. He wears those blue PL-600 eyes like a sad stray spaniel.

I know he must be a deviant. His LED is bright red. Faint hints of thirium stain his lower lip blue, and that makes my panic-plan all the more stupid because I don’t know if that stuff could harm me. I could be about to poison myself.

But I’m the one who slowed him down. If he’s caught and he wasn’t supposed to be… then I’m probably making things worse for a group of people who I know now are already utterly fucked. I can’t let it happen.

He could be anyone. He could be a murderer for all I know… but he doesn’t look like it. The fact that he is so sure he’s caught and his struggle is over galvanizes me. He’s not hurting me to get free, and I know he could have. 

All of this is racing through my mind at the speed of light, adrenaline pulsing through my veins, slowing everything down. I’m not really thinking so much as _feeling_ what to do, as the thoughts I’ve been having coalesce into impulsive actions.

This is my chance. I can start now, I can start showing them we’re not all against them. 

There’s a sickened despair in his eyes that doesn’t recede even as I slip the hood over the back of his head. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, sure that an android can hear me, and it brings the first hint of faltering confusion to his eyes, because he doesn’t realize what I’m apologizing for is the brutish manhandling I’m about to give an innocent stranger. 

I smooth the fabric over his shoulders with a fierce determination, grabbing on in a swift motion and spinning him around so he’s pressed up against the pillar.

It’s a move straight out of Markus’s own playbook, and I know how well it _didn’t_ go over for him, but it’s my only option with so little time. 

They’re right behind us; I can hear them just about to round the corner as I press a hand to his face just to be sure they can’t see his LED. At the same time, I dig the fingers of my other hand into his hair… and then I mold my body against his. 

My last glimpse of him before I do it is of the absolute uncomprehending stupefaction on his face. I start in on his lips as if we’ve been at this all night, projecting an aggressive hunger, my throat filling with a pleased little moan of vampish delight. 

I always read stories like this and thought they were romantic or sexy, but all I’m feeling right now is guilt, worry, and panic. My heart is trying to thump its way out of my chest so hard that even with all the fabric and flesh in the way, I’m sure he can feel it. I know I have to sell the ruse, so even though he’s paralyzed from shock and heaven knows what else, I kiss him deeper, purring out a satisfied ‘mmm.’ 

Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite good enough. One of the officers--oh god, police are after him, what am I doing?--stops beside us, panting. The deviant I’m kissing couldn’t be any stiffer in my arms. Good thing he doesn’t have to breathe or I imagine he’d be hyperventilating.

“Have you seen an android in a red sweatshirt running through here?” he huffs out, despite how obvious it should be that I’ve been ‘preoccupied.’ 

Again, I have to sell this. I conjure up the worst stereotype of a bored rich girl in my head, and imagine this man as the most pathetic worm not worthy to lick my bootheel. “No,” I grate out condescendingly, my tone leaving no room for further questions and no doubt that I think he’s just a lazy pervert. And for safety’s sake, I take the deviant’s earlobe between my teeth, nibbling amorously as I conveniently obscure his face. My hand seems to caress his shoulder, while I’m really just making sure the only fabric visible is black, and I glance sideways in a combination of scorn and exhibitionist satisfaction.

With an impatient, semi-embarrassed huff, the cop starts running after his partner. DPD’s finest, I’m sure. 

I am just about to start in on his neck when a glance aside tells me that they’re gone, so I stop right there, waiting with bated breath. I make absolutely sure that they’re burying themselves in the maze of these hallways looking for a deviant I have right here… and then I pull back to face the music with a litany of deeply ashamed apologies all ready to spill out of my mouth. 

The look on his face stops me. There’s no trace of the revulsion or violation or indignance I’d feared I might see. At worst, there might be some awkwardness or uncertainty, but it’s nobody’s first concern. He seems to understand that it wasn’t salacious feelings that drove me just now; that I was saving his life with hardly a hesitation, and his visible absolute inability to _fathom_ such an act is crushing my heart. 

Apologies now dead in my throat, I just look at him. He’s so clearly at a loss for words, and I hardly have any myself. “Let’s get this onto you,” I tell him, and start gently but swiftly helping him into the coat. "You'll be safer."

He’s as pliable as green wood while I do it, only mechanically aiding me without any conscious thought seeming to go with it--but he’s staring the whole time, unblinking... like I would stare at a fucking unicorn if it ended up in my apartment chilling on my couch. 

After a long space of silence, he finally breathes his words at me in disbelief: “You’re really human, aren't you? Why...?” 

It’s like I can feel his energy, soft but intense. It’s not even just why I wouldn’t turn him in that he can’t seem to fathom. It’s like he can’t believe I would give up my property to hide him, risk whatever consequences might arise from being a possible accomplice of some kind--worse, aiding a malfunctioning machine that might hurt someone… or even touch him like he was a person just now. Like I cared.

I gaze back at him with sympathy, compassion overwhelming me. I saw him only a minute ago so frightened and full of despair; it’s gratifying to see those worser emotions disappearing into stark incredulity. But something is tugging at my consciousness now, and unfortunately, my curiosity makes me foolish. Something about his inflections and the way he said the word ‘human’... something about his astounded bearing, as if human kindness was something he’d never experienced before… 

It can’t be. It can’t be anyone familiar. There are tons of these things even in market decline. That wouldn’t make any sense… right?

Though there probably are a lot fewer deviants than non, so if you run into one at all in 2037 there's a bigger chance...

Recognition stirs within me against my will; recognition, and a vulnerability he couldn’t possibly understand because in his mind, no single human had ever really cared about him, let alone the idea of a multitude simply adoring him. 

I know that voice. I know the way he wears this common, familiar face. I know him… I can’t possibly, but I know him...

It just comes out of me, unfettered by reason or sanity or prudence. 

“Simon?” I breathe, the cherished name soft with doubt, wonder, caring… all emotions I should know would make no sense to a stranger. 

Predictably, he takes it exactly wrong, since he could never guess the true reasons I know his name, know him--the only other PL600 I have a soft spot for. His eyes fill with astonishment and fear, signaling my mistake before I have the chance to rectify it. I open my mouth to explain, but he’s already jerking away from me, darting back in the direction from which he came. I made him think I’m a CyberLife agent or something.

“Wait!” I exhort, but he’s too fast for my short legs and I know it, so as he retreats into the night all I can do is stare after him. Am I crazy? He could easily have been some absolute stranger; someone who seems like Simon, looks like Simon, but isn’t him. 

Maybe the only reason he reacted to the name of “Simon” was that he feared I’d mistaken him for my own lost android, and that I would try to force him upstairs like some obsessive stalker ex-girlfriend.

Shortly, I am pulled out of my reverie by awareness of another android presence, and the small dog frantically trying to snap her leash to get to me. I look to Jasper, still lost after what just happened. Did I dream that? Did he see it? It seems like I’m perpetually disoriented these days. 

He strides uncomfortably close and touches the edge of my lip; startled, I flinch in response. I certainly didn’t wake up this morning expecting two different androids to have contact with my lips.

“Well.” Licking his blue-stained fingertip, Jasper notes urbanely, “you’ve had an adventure.” Then he keeps moving, making his way to the button and then into the elevator. 

“Coming?” he asks once he’s settled inside with Silver. 

I send a long and anguished look over my shoulder, part of me wanting to go make that futile search. But I realize, whatever he was doing out here, whoever he truly was, I have hope that I know where he’ll go next. 

I join Jasper and the dancing little dog. The doors close on us, and on a very long night. 

I know it’s only been the first of many.

* * *

  
  


**_I can see her smile, I can say her name_ **

**_The face I see - we are both the same_ **

**_If I am her, why do I damn her?_ **

**_Am I hoping she will slowly slip away?_ **

[ **Claire Voyant | Her** ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP4qsRg0V90&list=PLsT9eE_81wQLx4DEVHh6uMsSJtpbTccGX&index=7)


End file.
